


IN LOCO PHASMA

by DSi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Albino Dave Strider, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Ambiguous Relationships, Autistic Dirk Strider, Autistic Jade Harley, Consensual Possession, Dave Strider VS. ADHD, Dirk Strider's C++ Parenting, Don't copy to another site, Dramedy, Ghosts, Gravity Falls Oregon, Guilt, Kid Fic, Murder, Mystery, Other, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Poltergeists, Repressed Memories, Self-Denial, Slow Burn, Suspense, TEMP HIATUS, Unreliable Narrator, aggravatingly sensual non-sexual tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2020-10-14 02:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 199,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DSi/pseuds/DSi
Summary: Thank god Caliborn isn’t here right now, you think, as Caliborn seeps into the room like a malignant devil who heard his name from inside your mind. He’s green and heat, and he is not welcome.“SILENCE THE CHILD. OR ELSE I WILL DO IT MYSELF.”(Dirk runs away from his abusive home in Texas all the way up to a cheap, abandoned house in Oregon that is haunted by an angry green poltergeist with Big Issues and a nasty mile-wide 'cruelty to the living' streak.Dave, the four-year-old little brother Dirk was not fully aware he had, follows him there.)





	1. My Lucifer Is Lonely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katreal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katreal/gifts).

> _Although no Explicit content will be featured, this is a Mature story. Reader discretion is necessary._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Violence, near-death experiences, descriptions of injuries/burns, threats of violence, minor self-harm, references to past abuse, drug use (weed), descriptions of nightmares/body horror/horror elements, humorous conversations about fetish (feet, inflation, furry/monster girl, memory alteration), online artistic sex work, sexual flirtations, mentions of auto-erotic asphyxiation, past Dirk/Jake, fridge horror child endangerment, implied child sexual abuse, child abandonment.

Your name is Dirk Strider. You’re nineteen. You’re standing in front of your very first house, which has been bought using the money you’ve been saving since you were fourteen and doing illegal commissions for creeps online, then sixteen, when you were getting paid under the table to beat similar creeps up in real life.

Speaking of creeps, you’ve bribed one to move all your shit up to Northeastern Oregon from a previously purchased halfway-to-Texas point storage facility. He drove it here in an unmarked white truck. You’re pretty sure he banged around some of your electronic stuff that you couldn’t fit in your own flatbed, but you won’t cause a scene; you’re ready to be young and alone.

He takes the time to salute you before getting back in his truck and rolling it down the driveway. The one that’s purely gravel and around a mile long. Maybe even longer, but you didn’t ask when you bought the place, only took silent notice. That mien made the seller a lot more nervous and prone to divulging information.

“A steal,” the seller had simpered. “A fixer-upper,” they then changed to when one of the windows slammed itself shut. “Nothing better out here for miles. Lot's-a room for the price, in this economy...” They had quailed under your scrutiny as you kicked abandoned items around in the foyer; the previous tenants apparently couldn’t get out fast enough, leaving a trail of toys and clothes and pictures behind. The old, peeling wallpaper on the second floor revealed nonsensically scrawled messages in green. “A bargain for a first time buyer.”

Brown-noser with something to hide.

It was hot upstairs, almost unnaturally so, but you’d felt worse coming from Texas. This was roadkill county in a totally unremarkable state – surely you had the skills and drive to disappear here. You tried not to exude ‘desperate runaway’ vibes as you’d forked over the cash and signed documents with the increasingly unprofessional seller.

And then you try – and fail – not to exude ‘easy pickings’ vibes when the ghost starts to show up.

Because this house is fucking haunted.

House abandoned, too long of a violent, mysterious backlog of previous buyers and renters. Unexplained noises, sudden temperature flux.

The unerring feeling of being watched.

God, no wonder you could afford it. Your ensuing burial will likely cost more, should anybody care enough to pay for it. Though, considering you’re probably going to get knifed in the middle of the night by Ye Old Ghost that’s been haunting here since the 1900s… should anybody _know_ to pay for it. Your body could rot here for months, unfound.

Suppose you don’t get offed immediately – you have the dreary feeling that dealing with even the most minor of hauntings will be a tiring, stressful experience likely to stack traumas upon traumas like an unfair game of Jenga called ‘the bitch end of Life.’ And right after you’d so hoped to get _away_ from that sort of lifestyle.

These thoughts do not necessarily procure the healthy sleep you’d been promising yourself.

It’s your first night here. Everything’s fuckall dirty and like hell are you gonna clean it. A lot of the objects littering the floor, as it has come to your blandly horrified attention, are a conglomeration of different decades. Many a family has left footprints behind.

You’re considering hiring an exorcist or something before you touch any of this shit. And before you suffer from so much buyer’s remorse you pack up and decide to become a homeless hillbilly.

The light in the kitchen pops into tiny shards as you’re standing right under it. Sparks and glass rain down into your empty ramen bowl. You shake your head and body to get it all off, haphazardly tossing the foam container in the trashcan with no plastic bag. That’s gross. Reminder: buy trash bags.

Reminder: Buy a lot of things, actually.

As you step over the mess and go into the only other joined room, you make a note to fiddle with the electric wiring up there before replacing any bulbs.

The living room is occupied by a shitty green couch, a weird coffee table you avoid looking at because it makes you illogically mad, and a badly taken care of fireplace you’ll have to clean and make usable when winter comes around. You’ve looked it up online, and it only gets up to around the mid-80s out here in the summer, so you don’t think you’ll have to plead with an AC window unit ever again, thank god.

For now, you sit down on the couch and tap assurances of your successful arrival at Unnamed State to your friends. All three of them. You hesitate in sending anything to a fourth person… Nah, he’d appreciate better security than this. You’ll mail the bastard a letter.

Dad wouldn't have expected you two to converse via snailmail – he’d be monitoring the internet, thinking he could cut the legs out from under the both of you. Hal will know what to do to keep himself safe.

You hope.

You used to have way less faith in your twin, you recall as you thumb at a line of bandages nestled up in between two of your bruised ribs. But he’s been a main factor in helping you escape, in keeping you alive when all Dad seemed to want to do was have you dead.

Suppose Hal’s repaying the favor from all those years ago...

Your couch musings are interrupted by an ominous rattling noise, once again coming from the kitchen. You consider pretending to ignore it for about half a second, but then what you suspect are the glass shards come whizzing past your face, nicking the left ear, you decide that that sounds like a stupid idea liable to get you killed. You turn around with your head propped up on one hand, hopefully shielding your mouth from view and any expressions you accidentally make with it.

The noises stop. Nothing else is thrown. A bead of sweat rolls down your back, and it’s such a normal occurrence to your mind that it barely registers.

You blink slowly, calculating.

Perhaps whatever this thing is – poltergeists are ghosts that can move objects, which is what you think may be rooming with you right now – it wants attention. Simple. Maybe you can flip this script. Maybe you can do what no one else has done before, what all other tenants have failed to do, and –

Two iron-brand hot hands clamp down onto your bare shoulders, tanktop straps burning up into ash, skin sizzling.

It’s hellfire.

“_Fuck!”_ The hands shove you forward and you roll, not allowing yourself to get pinned on the floor. You flatten your body underneath the artsy woodchip coffee table in between the couch and the fireplace.

You feel like your entire being is burning up with a fever that permeates throughout the whole room. Your shoulders are tight, and from your peripherals you can see the red hot skin of the burn. Your shirt is in tatters, barely clinging.

As if in a nightmare, you can feel something hovering above you. A presence.

“MY NAME IS CALIBORN.”

You scramble out from under the furniture just in time to avoid being crushed underneath its fists, splintering the table into pulchritudinous pieces.

“THIS IS MY TERRORTORY.”

_Prepare to die,_ the Jake part of your brain quips.

And then it starts throwing those pieces, smoldering the edges where it touches them, and you’re dodging without thinking. Superficial splinters from where one chunk hits the wall over top you and bursts flutter against your burns, and you nearly scream.

You have to get out of here.

Heading towards the front door in a dead sprint, you give up dodging and do your best to divert anything thrown with the meat of your arms and thighs. Unlike in a horror movie, the door isn’t locked, though the knob is suspiciously warm in a way that worries you about the skin of your hand. Still, you throw it open and stumble out into the night right as ‘Caliborn’ chucks the kitchen garbage can at you, scattering whatever trash you’ve put in there all around.

“SO EASY.” A laugh that should not be a laugh filters out from within the house, door hanging open, you standing in the front yard tearing off the rest of your ruined shirt. “AND HERE I THOUGHT. I HAD FINALLY FOUND A CHALLENGE.”

“If you think this is gonna be easy,” you round back with, using your rag of a shirt to wipe the sweat from your face before tossing it down, “you’ve got another think coming. Leave the door unlocked. Caliborn.”

It grandly throws all of the broken table shards at you before slamming the door.

Reminds you of a tantrum-ridden child.

Your bare feet crunch against the gravel mixed with soft powdery dirt. Somebody’s blowing up your phone – it keeps flickering in your pocket. The sounds of the forest deafen the white noise already in your head.

“Feels like home already.” You flick wood dust out of your hair and absentmindedly begin gathering the shit strewn about. It’s mostly the pieces of wood from that table you never liked the look of. Some if it is trash. Your used ramen bowl is among the victims; you turn the dented garbage can right-side up and deposit it back inside.

The wood, you make a lazy pile with, and then use your lighter and a handful of dry grass to set aflame. A nice little self-congratulatory bonfire. You roll a somewhat damp log over and sit down on it.

You use the bonfire to light your last paper-thin toke of weed from Texas. You were saving it for your inevitable breakdown over running away from a nineteen-year long abusive father, but honestly, you think you’ve got bigger fish to fry now.

_This could be a good thing,_ you try to convince yourself. A poltergeist just for you, to take your mind off all the other shit. The anxiety over what is to follow, lying to your friends, leaving behind your brother. Hell, you even heard whispers outta Hal once a few years back about Dad’s other kid having it worse than you ever did, but you’ve never met them, and also Hal used to play the 'we could have it worse' card a lot, so you try not to think about it. Think about what Dad would want with another kid when he had two self-proclaimed failures right there under his thumb.

You sigh smoke out of your nose like a dragon. It burns. The fire, sitting so close, burns, too; your eyes, your throat, your shoulders, the palms of your hands.

You force your mind to uncover memories that it had tried to block out to protect your psyche.

Red eyes, like hellfire. They can’t compare to the fire you look at now, not nearly burning hot enough. You catch yourself before you lean even closer, like you’re already trying to recreate the trauma of what happened. The overbearing heat of the room compared to the warmth of the fire, the coolness of night against your back… It isn’t the same.

You stub the butt up against the wettest underside of the log, tossing the empty paper into the fire. Floating in that space of almost-calm, you raise your hands to the fire, palms out, and warm them beyond comfort levels.

You cross your arms over your chest and place both warmed hands onto the burns spots of your shoulders.

It hurts, but the heat can’t be replicated.

You switch between gazing into the fire, at the quiet house, and at unanswered messages on your phone before you eventually plop down into the grass and doze the rest of the night away.

* * *

Somehow, you get that sleep you were convinced wouldn’t happen.

Waking up with a strange pain ricocheting from your throat down your shoulders in the middle of the woods leads you to a relatively minor freakout, in which you’re convinced for a good minute that Dad really had finally gotten tired of your shit, slit your throat the full way, and then dragged you into the woods to die.

However, simply touching the old scar on your throat and finding nothing new is enough to calm you down to a more reasonable level. You remember why you’re in the woods, staring up at the small break in the canopy that designates your house and driveway. Yours.

You are, technically, at home. Debateably alone. This should comfort you.

It does not.

And yet, when you boldly march back inside the surprisingly unlocked house to finally treat your burns and possibly re-wrap your ribs, no spookums come to greet you. As when you first moved in yesterday morning, all is silent. Except now it’s creepier.

Your bare foot kicks a severed doll head across the foyer, knocking into a pile of old clothes that look like they’re from the 60’s.

Nevermind. It’s always been creepy. You were just in denial before. Now you have tangible proof that the tension is not imagined, it’s real. And it will burn you if you aren’t careful.

The bathroom is upstairs, which you think is a weird design choice, but then again, upstairs is where the two bracketing bedrooms are. And perhaps, when this house was built, it was by people who never gave thought to others who could not use stairs. Or maybe people who had no foresight for when avoiding stairs in their life would be tantamount to not dying.

You consider your own personal bias against stairs as you use your first aid kit to treat your burns and re-wrap your previous injuries, the handprint-shaped bruise around each wrist going uncovered. You’ve been thrown down enough stairs to now avoid them on instinct. You know a few creative ways to do so. One of them is to bypass the stairs whenever necessary, though it’s easier to do this while coming down than when going up.

So you use the upstairs railing as a launching point, leaping down to the first floor. Nothing breaks. You count this as a win.

Then the heat of the first floor gets to you, and you sweat for more reasons than just one.

“WELL. WELL. WELL.”

“’Sup.” You try not to stammer and shake in ways you’ve never known yourself to do as you maneuver around the strange, esoteric presence now hovering over you. You think the red amongst the green cloudiness might be its eyes, but you can’t seem to muster up the courage to look directly at it.

This is already going badly. You and fear, honest to god _fear,_ do not mix. You wish you’d saved that last smoke. You fucking need it.

**“YOU.”** The entity glides about the ruined living room, seeming to simultaneously suck the morning light into its black hole of a ‘body’ and yet also give off its own sickly green glow that ducks into corners and digs its fingers into your eyes. “WHAT IS A LITTLE BOY LIKE YOU. DOING SO FAR FROM HOME. I WONDER.”

“Meeting hot single specters in my area.” You act like you’re utterly preoccupied in sweeping every single speck of detritus from the kitchen floor with a janky broom you found. You don’t look up. “What about you, broski. How long have you been in the scene.”

“LONGER THAN YOU. HAVE BEEN ALIVE.”

Oh, boy.

“AND LONGER THAN YOU. WILL LIVE.”

Oh, _boy._

Several rusty knives of varying sizes rattle themselves from the drawers you hadn’t bothered to peek in yesterday, floating into the air and pointing down towards you like shark’s snouts.

Well… Now this thing is making it too easy.

The fact that Caliborn launches them at you one by one is simply laughable. You dodge – of course you do. It’s astounding, for a moment, how little brain power it takes for you to slide neatly past every single one of those tiny little knives. You’ve had worse, you’ve had _so_ much worse. You could almost cry. To think you’d been worried or whatever.

You smoked weed for this.

When all of the knives are embedded deeply into the walls, so deep that the poltergeist seems to have too much trouble getting them out to bother anymore, you continue sweeping guilelessly.

Although you can’t help but give it an admonishing, “Rude. And,” like a mocking echo of its own words yesterday, “Too easy.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘**TOO EASY!?’” **The ghost bellows much louder than you thought possible, and you flinch in a way that makes you nervous again. “YOU FUCKING FREAK.”

“Wow. So did you find this place on the app too or what. Wasn’t your profile the one that said ‘masc 4 masc’ or am I still dreaming.”

Caliborn visibly sags, like a sack of goo with barely any tangible form. “OH. MY GOD.”

And then it disappears.

Check and fucking mate, my evil sir.

You smugly sweep until you begin to realize that you have no dustpan, in which you simply shove all of the shit into the corner where the trashcan has yet to be replaced. You scamper your way back upstairs, where your unfinished room is. You have a goddamn letter to write.

* * *

Caliborn is a green fissure at the edge of your vision, a constant rotation of murals like a figurine in a music box, only what comes out of him is bitten off words from his lockjaw personality. Permanent skeletal grin with one gold tooth, none of them white and none of them dulled down to anything other than predatory.

It's been two weeks. The everything is still dusty as fuck minus maybe your room and all three of your plates have been smashed. You eat off paper ones that aren't as satisfying for him to tear apart, though one single time you found them soaking like a semi-sentient mass in the only working toilet. You're honestly surprised he hasn't resorted to more guerrilla tactics such as tampering with what little supplies you have to sustain yourself, or smashing the plumbing or something incredibly inconvenient in this stage of living, but he seems to prefer more direct, immediate approaches. And reactions.

“You say you used to be human,” you begin, mid-God of War play session, when you spot his green visage from the corner of your eye, “but you look like a shitty rendition of an _oni._ An oil painting of one. Made by a child. Why the green.”

“IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.”

_Didn’t seem like none of my business when you randomly three nights ago started bragging about how powerful and dangerous you were as a human before proceeding to try and tip everything on my bed onto the floor,_ you don’t say. It would be an angry mouthful.

“Did your death involve one of the seven deadly sins.” You track his movements from the edge of your shades. He’s moving closer. Several of the abandoned pieces of old shit on the shelves left by hastily vacated past families rattle and fall. Kratos gets killed. “Envy, maybe. Did you die green with envy, Caliborn -”

He smashes your Playstation to little bits and pieces.

You sit back and drop your controller laxly to the ground, crossing your ankles and putting your hands behind your head, exposing your bare armpits and neck.

Caliborn’s unearthly growl shakes the room with malice at your casual display of cool-headed indifference.

“YOUR FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR BRAINDEATH MACHINE WAS JUST DESTROYED.” The poltergeist that is currently sidling up to your squishy mortal form that still does not give a shit sounds like dropping several tons of logs onto concrete. “BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE. DIRK STRIDER.”

“Guess so,” you respond. Shrug the shoulders he burned, but couldn’t permanently mark. “And what’ll you do about it. Caliborn.”

He echoes you entirely wrong by smashing your only remaining cup onto the hardwood right at your feet. Bits and pieces gouge into your toes, and you curse before yanking them up onto the couch. Now there’s blood on the ugly thing. Can’t say you really mind.

Caliborn laughs, big and loud and pleased, before disappearing. The temperature of the room lowers by several thankful degrees, and you may not be a Texas rodeo kind of bitch anymore, but you notice when you’re no longer profusely sweating.

So… This is going alright.

You haven’t had a full night’s rest since that first day here when you slept outside. You’re not desperate enough to do that again, though, not nearly cowed enough to escape with your tail between your legs. You can doze, from time to time, usually right after he majorly fucks with you and then disappears in a pissy huff, but you know from experience that it isn’t enough.

In fact, you were using gaming as a way to try and stay awake. Occupy your mind. Now, it’s smashed into so many chunks, you’re unsure if you can fix it later. The drag of tiredness, of nearly seventy hours without actual sleep beyond your last fitful doze, is muddling your thoughts and emotions.

You’re glad Caliborn didn’t push for more, just now. You’re unsure if you could’ve run and dodged properly if he had. Shaky on if you could’ve put up anything more than the unconcerned front you were using to mask your exhaustion.

As if pulled down by some gentle force, different from any other force you’ve dealt with thus far, you stretch out sideways on the couch, unheedful of the blood you left at the very edge. This is where you kip usually, anyway. Your bed, which lacks a boxspring and frame, tends to be occupied with projects you are unwilling to move.

And now _you_ are unwilling to move. A slow, delirious sink down into darkness, eyes rolling so sweetly back into your head almost as soon as your body settles into one place like _a ship come to moor._

_The soft, sugary spinning of red…_

_Mixing with green like pastry batter, the kind Jane would drip drip drip colored oil into during Christmas, Hanukkah, any day she gets away with it. It swirls into your body that doesn’t exist in this state, a dull, fuzzy, dizzy numb thing that you don’t feel like paying attention to. _

_Candy-laden dreams. But there’s nothing wanted about this sugar. The feeling of being watched, hot hot hands around your neck like a dream that isn’t a nightmare, but should you not want it, a nightmare it can turn into._

_You can’t breathe._

_Caliborn tightens his clawless hands around your neck and you don’t burn, but you don’t breathe either. As if you’d lost all structural integrity, the pressure collapses you inward, and you’d scream if only you had lungs. Your eyes roll inwards, down, down the esophagus, into your stomach where you can see two shiny wet snakes writhing where your intestines should be, coughing green syrup –_

You wake up to the morning sun filtering in through the windows and a heart beating hard in your chest. You are breathing.

It takes you a few minutes, but you eventually roll off of the couch and almost immediately step onto the still-shattered mug littering the floor. You don’t place a hand to your chest, as if that would calm your nightmare-scared heart, when Caliborn flutters at the edge of your vision, near-invisible against the sunbeams infesting your living room.

“Did you, by any chance, put your ‘hands’ around my neck last night.” Whatever he was about to bellow like some kind of open satanic furnace is interrupted.

He recovers quickly. “DREAMING OF ME? I REMAIN UNFLATTERED. DESPERATE NELLY.”

“Of what context is this accusation of ‘dreaming of me’ laid in, exactly.”

The poltergeist moves beyond your peripherals. The heat of the room kicks up a notch. Or perhaps he’s simply gotten closer. You don’t move, gazing out the window. You can’t tell if it’s because of fear or not.

“THE CONTEXT IS MEANINGLESS. I WILL WRAP MY HANDS AROUND YOUR NECK. AND MAKE YOU SING. FOR ME.”

“If I’m being choked, there will be no singing involved.”

“DO NOT GET TECHNICAL WITH ME. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN STRANGLED BEFORE?”

“I’m not at personal liberty to answer that without your ‘context’ first.”

You pause. Are you trying to one-up him, or are you trying to goad him into attempting to one-up you? Either way – whatever this is, it’s fun when you win. As most things tend to be.

“I’ll have you know that I select my safephrases on a case-by-case basis,” you inform him with a tone that you understand conveys a blasé air, walking your fingers up the wall since he has no chest to do so on, “and right now I’m getting ‘Sesshomaru’ vibes. Thoughts?”

That line of inquiry is thoroughly shattered, like the mirror Caliborn vaults over your head, when he goes, “THAT IS ABSOLUTELY **VILE!”** and then disappears from the room.

It seems your ghost is a vanilla schmuck.

Your foot’s scab from last night agonizingly pulls itself off with the next step you take, scuffing your soles across the roughened old wooden floors.

It seems you have some cleaning up to do.

* * *

You get a letter back from Hal.

You had to pick it up from the only postal office in town, one of the few employees there acting mighty confused when they had to call you to tell you it had arrived, only to be greeted with one of your answering machine bots that sounded only adjacently sentient.

Your twin’s letter is written in one of his nonsensical codes he delights torturing you with that’ll take you days to figure out, should you care to decode it at all. You can already predict the contents of the letter, however, namely it being a landslide of botheration and aggro-entwined euphemisms to your current status as AWOL while only a small portion will be dedicated to information you actually give a shit about.

Instead of dealing with any of that nonsense, you shove it into your bereft filing cabinet and continue with your commission. Somehow, Caliborn has yet to destroy your custom rigged tower nor your expensive drawing tablet, which is great, because you haven’t had as much luck in selling your skills as a robotics engineer. Shipping is too expensive for your current lifestyle to offer your services anywhere but within the state, but boy oh boy is Oregon a dry place for electronic creation. Unless you suddenly have the deep enough pockets for Oregon State University.

Your other survival-based selling skills, thankfully, need not be contained to one state.

“WHY DO YOU DRAW THE FEET LIKE THAT?”

“Because that’s what the commissioner asked me to do. Is paying me to deliver the goods.” You draw another line, delete it, draw it again. Switch to a different layer.

Caliborn seems utterly goddamn fascinated by you penning this niche ass furry fetish art. He’s so distracted, apparently, that he forgets whatever annoyance he floated in to waste your time with.

Do ghosts get bored?

“FEET DO NOT LOOK LIKE THAT.” Your personal poltergeist is insistent, his voice and presence circling around your head like a cartoon tweety bird. “YOUR ART IS HORRIFIC.”

“Eyup.” Time for shading. “Seventy-five dollars an hour, tho’.”

“INFLATION.” You nearly give him a laugh, but stay strong once you realize that he most likely means the inflation rate of money. Interesting.

“Nah, none of that here,” you say anyways, because you honestly cannot help yourself. “Just some good ol’ catgirl feet. Adding that would cost extra.” You wink in his general not-direction from behind thick shades.

Caliborn seems to finally understand anyways. “OF COURSE SOMEONE AS LOW AS YOU. WOULD ENJOY SOMETHING SO DEPRAVED.”

The room begins to become heated in a way it wasn't before, and not in the sexy way. This makes you aware of how the temperature your Not So Friendly Neighborhood Spook exudes may or may not be attached to his mood. Something to note for later.

“PERHAPS I SHOULD CLEANSE THIS METHOD OF DEPRAVITY.” You begin to sweat, your computer fan whirring at the increased temperature, dangerously close to overheating. “NO SUCH THING IS A GOOD LOOK. ON YOU. BUT PURITY WOULD, AT LEAST, SMELL LESS PUTRID.”

You make the mistake of going, “Don’t you fucking dare,” which so obviously indicates to Caliborn that he should destroy what you cherish that you might as well have put a glowing neon sign around your head that says ‘DESPERATE.’

Before he legitimately wrecks the only thing you have left to make money with, AKA to pay the steep price for making the mistake of being alive, you decide to experiment. How corporeal, you ponder, does this manifestation get?

How far can you go?

From underneath the lumpy, unslept mattress, you pull a long, thin box made of a thick material.

And from this box, you retrieve your katana.

You don’t care to waste time on a monologue. As much as you’d enjoy getting in a few verbals jabs at the ghost’s expense, which you are confident in your ability to, time is not on your electronic’s side today.

You turn, using the force of your body to deliver a slash directly where the specter of green was making itself visible, obviously readying to kill your computer and tablet.

It does not pass straight though, but neither does it catch the same way it would on an object, or living body. It’s as if you’ve attempted to cut through jello, a thick stew that could corrode metal.

As it is doing now.

“WOW.” For all it seems you cannot move, you grip your blade tighter; custom made by your horrible fuckoff father, gifted to your on your eighteenth birthday when he’d tried and nearly succeeded in slitting your head from your body, and once used to commit a true atrocity. It suffers in the miasma, boiling, turning red hot and bright. “YOU REALLY ARE A MORON.”

“Yea, I think I get that,” you admit as you unwillingly pale, face-to-face with the fucked up metaphor that melts dangerously close both in vision and in eyes, right before Caliborn takes one of his limbs and yanks the pommel from your hands like one would easily snatch it from a child’s.

It’s a bad angle. With no direction for which to be grounded on, gravity ceasing to make sense, your ruined sword flips downwards, towards the floor, floating in green space. You don’t make it out of the way in time, taking a deep slice to the right thigh with one of its malformed shards, cooled by the air so that it no longer glows hot.

There is no convenient cauterizing, because the world doesn’t have mercy on pieces of shit like you.

You begin losing blood. A few nonsensical expletives let loose from your throat without your permission, but you’re too busy stumbling a retreat, grasping at walls in attempts to stay upright as you calculate your rate of survival on the way to the medkit stashed in the bathroom.

“OOPS.” You don’t know what that means, coming from him, considering how much he seems to delight in slapping his ownership onto any and all actions or traps or injuries he may create, but you don’t have the time right now to debate the latent personality contradictions of your resident haunt when you run the very real risk of failing to clean out, sew shut, and maintain shut this injury.

It’s fine, you tell yourself as you wash the dirty bathroom floor with your own lifeblood, you’ve done this before. You’ve had worse before.

But back then, you also had other people living with you. Ones who weren’t already dead. At least half of one who could flip a coin, see where it lands, and perhaps care enough about you that day to keep you from dying.

You are not fully aware of what Caliborn is doing, or where he is. All you know is time, ticking down, the slow drain of yourself like forgotten food cooling in a trashcan, familiar pain, familiar shaking hands and uncontrolled breathing, familiar thread, familiar needle, how warm and oily blood is before it becomes friction and flakes.

It could almost be like a comfort in its familiarity. You are even graced with the presence of crippling shame at making such a glaring mistake.

Just like home, you think, laying there covered in sweat and blood. A long track of ugly stitches mar your thigh. Just another scar, you think. You’ll never be pretty enough to go to the ball now, you think.

Caliborn unexpectedly appears, dropping something so hot and compact onto your stomach that your first instinct is to fling it into the nether, which you fail to do because you cannot move individual limbs optimally right now.

But then you become slightly more aware, realizing that it isn’t dangerously hot so much as uncomfortably so. You crane your head down, wondering when you got on the floor when you’d started out sitting on the toilet, and spot a semi-burnt bread pouch in a plastic and cardboard foil.

Wuh-oh. You believe you’re being courted by death.

“EAT.” It commands you. “EAT, YOU IGNORANT, FRAGILE WHELP. HOW ELSE WILL YOU SURVIVE?”

It is a highly effective courting.

Like a delirious fawn whose mother was just shot, you listen to the king of the forest and you eat the fucking Hot Pocket(TM).

“How’d you heat this,” you ask with a tinge of that delirium. If he’s destroyed your microwave over one hot pocket you might actually buy that Holy Water online after all.

“HOW DO YOU **THINK** I HEATED IT, DIRK STRIDER.”

Oh. Shit. That’s right.

Listen. You’ve lost a lot of blood.

You chew your over-cheesed bread pocket. Some sticks to the corner of your mouth and cannot be reached with your tongue. “Hey, I can’t always be a winner. I’m dyin’ here.”

“YOU ARE NEVER A WINNER. NOT IN MY HIGHLY QUALIFIED BOOKS.”

“That’s just your opinion, macho.”

When you crawl back to your room one shower and several painful hours later, your computer has blue screened from overheating, and your tablet is on the floor, but neither of them are non-functioning.

* * *

You continue to lie to your friends about your safety levels and being found, dodging the issue of where exactly you are now located for a precious more amount of time. You are an asshole. You do it anyways.

Naturally, it startles you badly one day when a vehicle can be seen and heard making its way up your twenty-minute long forest driveway.

You haven’t ordered anything. You didn’t tell anybody where you are. You have a PO box.

For one heartsplintering moment, your entire being soars with the idea of it perhaps, in some far off alternate reality, being Jake English come to find you. Come to rescue you from some of your bad ideas, and their even worse outcomes. Like he always grandstandingly promised he would, not so long ago.

The way Jake had looked at you with such open adoration those first few months was the stuff of nightmares. You’d reacted like a skittish animal at nearly every turn, running away and yet somehow managing to be overly clingy and attention-whoring at the same time. Building some kind of false version of yourself for him to love instead of who you really are, which is basically the equivalent of a tar monster given sentience by the gods only to ravage the townspeople until brought to death by some dashing hero. One wearing thigh holsters, perhaps.

When you split, he blamed himself for bungling the relationship up. You had only laughed, because you felt weak and incredulous. Him? Messed it up? No, it was you who was to blame. Neither of you could come to an agreement, and you both left each other frustrated. Which basically described the whole six month relationship in a nutshell.

Not that you wouldn’t sell every single organ you could possibly get away with on the Black Market for one more try at Jake English.

Anyway – you break from your mental fantasies and realize than an honest to god motorbike is valiantly attempting to conquer your gravel-dirt bumpkin drive. It’s making admirable progress of it.

Caliborn mercifully does not attempt to thwart you when you launch yourself from the upstairs hallway down to the first floor, though you do nearly impale your foot on a nail he’d apparently left up and ready for you. You’ve really got to start wearing shoes around the house, though you suspect he’d only find more imaginative ways to spike you in response. You’ll get house shoes when you feel like you want to up your own ante.

An over-eager and yet simultaneously nervous wreck, you rub at the ache in your previously sliced leg as you open the front door and wait the few agonizing minutes for the motorbike to slide to a dust-filled stop.

You feel like a Grade A dumbass though when Hal throws his helmet off in a practiced flourish. His identically coiled bleached hair is mussed in what he probably thinks is an artful way. “Hello, Dirk. Nice digs you got out here in bumfuck nowhere. Met any hillbillies with memory alteration fetishism yet?”

You’re damn close to slamming the door on him when you notice a tiny child sitting in between his legs, strapped to him with a black belt. Their own little helmet is shaped like a dinosaur’s head, green spikes and everything.

As you observe in muteness, Hal unstraps the kid and removes their helmet for them. “This is Dave.”

Dave is your youngest brother, and you, technically, should know this. You’ve ‘known’ this since he was born in some hospital in the same state as you, but you’ve never exactly gone out of your way to meet Dave, or particularly care. He was apparently taken to your father’s other apartment in Houston. The one, as you think about in retrospect, that he worked his smuppet business in.

That thought does not bode well.

You glance down at Dave with eyes that seem to weigh ten tons more than they did a moment ago. Dwarfed in a bright orange hoodie, he’s holding something black and soft in his arms and is looking out into the woods.

“He’s going to be staying with you from now on,” Hal continues, and you’re shaking your head No before you can even think about it.

There’s no way you’re letting a kid of an undetermined age beyond ‘small and close enough to infanthood that it’s uncomfortable to be around them’ stay in a house with a fucking heinous, bad-tempered poltergeist that has either frightened away or killed all previous tenants. You’ve only persisted for so long because you’re tenacious like the devil himself. Also you were out of options, bar returning to your abusive father.

Obvious to you, the poltergeist was the only option.

Hal walks up to look you in the face, and it’s as uncomfortable and prickling with tension as it’s always been. “Oh come on you big baby, he’s like two feet tall. You’ve got loads of room in this woodside crackhouse you’ve desperately holed yourself up inside of. He’s adorable, loves applesauce and crows, and he’ll have a running commentary about all the stupid shit you do on a daily basis by age six at the latest, thereby proving my functions as your twin brother completely obsolete.”

“Your ‘function’ is not to dog my every decision with our grating voice.” You eagle-eye Dave, who is now poking at a complicated structure next to the house that may or may not have been a compost about five years and twenty tenants ago. You’re still not entirely convinced there isn’t a body buried under there. “You don’t have to be here.”

“’Our’ voice, dear brother?” Hal says in a lilting tone you know he’s been practicing since he could first talk at the lonely and frustrated age of thirteen, post-debilitating accident. “So you admit that, in a vacuum, we both exist as basically the same dude -”

“Dave, no,” you call out in your sternest voice possible, which is apparently too stern, as Dave lets go of the side of the compost-_cum_-murder-coverup-site like his fingers are on fire and stands there looking down at his shoes, still as a statue, plush something shoved up into his jacket front so that it distorts his shape.

“See, you’ve already got the parental instincts down. Now all you need is a sexually unappealing middle-aged body and a boring last name, and you’re kosher enough to sell on shelves.” Hal slaps you on the ass and you whirl around, but he’s already flitting his way over to Dave to pet the kid on the head like a dog. “Bet you the door’s unlocked.”

Dave spares you a little look, and you accidentally make eye contact, though he won’t know that from behind your shades. His eyes are a startling blood red color that bleeds over into his sclera, and for a moment you think of Caliborn. You begin to sweat as Dave’s hand pushes the door open. Hal was right. It’s unlocked.

“He’s albino,” Hal says without prompting. “And the red is from a blood leak that is otherwise totally contained and not dangerous to him lest he do something to cause it to leak even more. Or – unless _you_ do something, considering he’s yours now.”

“Mine.” You echo, stupidly, which you expect Hal to immediately berate you for, but instead you’re skittering forth on some sort of innate hunch you didn’t know you had beyond _panic_ to watch Dave creep further into your house. He pokes at all the old, varied umbrellas and walking sticks in the weird vase by the front door that you still haven’t gotten rid of. You think Caliborn may try to skewer you with one if you did.

You belatedly obsess over how much leftover blood you have yet to clean out of the bathroom. What a biohazard. You consider with only half a logical mind about the possible ways you could bribe Caliborn to burn the rest up, and then you ask yourself what the hell your problem suddenly is.

“Yes, you overeager bitch,” Hal speaks up front right behind you in that barely-contained tone of voice he gets when he’s ever ignored for anything longer than five seconds. Drama queen. “I got Dave out of there at risk of my own remaining limbs. No need to thank me or anything, considering you didn’t even offer to take me with you when you fled by yourself. Dad wasn’t happy, if you were wondering. Not happy in the slightest.”

“Wasn’t any time. Or plans,” you tell him distractedly. Dave is now fiddling with some dirty keys on a ring. You have no idea where he found them. You resist the urge to snatch them out of his hands and immediately stab him with a tetanus shot. “Besides, you weren’t the one with the boyfriend.”

“Hm, yes. Where is Jake, by the way?” Hal has that little grin, mean as anything. Your own mouth turns down, so you pretend like you’re uber focused on how Dave is kicking random dirty shit across the floor in the entrance way. “Shall I guess? Is he hmm… Upstairs, breathlessly awaiting your return? Or maybe for you to finally clean this shithole up? Dave, please put that down, it’s probably got rat poison and desperation on it.”

Dave puts whatever the hell he was holding down and shuffles off to find something else to poke at. His little white head is like a beacon in the relative darkness of the hallway. Caliborn had smashed any lights you’d put in, so you hadn’t bothered for more in a while. You guess that’s a fight you’re obligated to revisit, now.

“He’s not around. You can’t leave Dave here.” Hal rolls his eyes in a perfect circle because he’s never learned that ‘rolling your eyes’ doesn’t mean a full 360 roll. It makes him look possessed. “I’m serious.” You decide not to mention the ghost, and end up not being capable of mentioning anything specific at all. “Why can’t you take him with you. Surely you don’t trust me with him – you didn’t trust me enough to inform me you were coming.”

“Because now _I_ am the one with the boyfriend,” Hal says with much too much delight, completely bypassing your accusations about trust, and your stomach sours. Dave almost trips over the single stair up into the living room, and ends up retreating back to the entryway instead. “His name is Equius. His QPP named Nepeta offered the bedroom above her cat cafe in Japan to me. I’ll be pursuing a robotics degree there. Obviously, I couldn’t stay at dear old Dad’s if I was being a huge queer, now could I? My neck isn’t as durable as yours was, Dirk.”

“And neither could Dave,” you question in your perpetually flat voice. You seriously wonder what kind of woman would ever let your dad get her pregnant, not yours if Dave’s features are anything to go by, but then you remember the man’s strange ability to become a snake charmer at the opportune moments. Some people, regretfully, looked at him and thought that they could tame that crazy amount of unfiltered danger. Horny opportunistic morons that kept giving that man helpless babies.

You’d suspect Hal got his own disorder from y’alls father if you didn’t already know mental illness doesn’t really work like that, and Hal also at least engages in struggles to be a better person. Ineffective as that might be, in your opinion.

If he’s got a boyfriend who readily accepts him into house and relationship, though, then there’s hope for him yet.

“Nope.” Hal shoves a red stick of bubblegum into his mouth, and when he speaks, his fruity breath wafts over your face. You fight not to cringe. Cherry. “Really, Dirk, leaving an impressionable and easily scarred four-year-old in the possession of Dad? Because that’s what he’d be,” your brother pops his gum in a sickeningly pink bubble, “a possession. The item of a cult, run by one man. You don’t want to know what I found when I went in there to get him, Dirk. You don’t.” He steps back and opens his arms, as if he expects you to step into them. “Unless you do?”

You shift uncomfortably at that declaration, ignoring whatever twisted version of comfort Hal offers. The heavy pause is enough for Dave to come scampering back towards the front door, and for a moment you’re fearful that Caliborn has made an appearance and Dave’s about to come out screaming about a ghost, but instead all you see is a roach dogging his heels like a heat-seeking missile.

Hal’s smile grows big and trained. “A friend is trying to get to know you, Dave!”

Dave makes a tiny noise, the first you’ve heard out of him since he suddenly toddled his way into your sphere of reference on the back of your brother’s bike, a contraption you aren’t entirely sure how it came to be owned by Hal, but you are not going to ask, because you’re positive that that’s something Hal wants.

Flapping his hands in the air a few times before abruptly ceasing all movement, Dave crouches down and allows the biggest goddamn roach you have ever seen in your life to crawl onto his hand.

“Wow, ew,” Dave says, spinning twice in complete circles, before launching the roach into the woods with a jerk of his arm.

“Aww...” Hal says in faked disappointment.

You just stand there and watch all this go down.

“Okay Dave, take Sprite and get inside!” Hal tells Dave with carefully tailored excitement, and Dave barely hesitates to yank the plush out of his hoodie – a crow, you realize, with big fluffy wings that flop around limply – and hop back into the house before turning around to wait for more instruction. “If you stay inside, Dirk can’t throw you out as easily. And if he tries anyway, just hold on to the closest thing and scream as loud as you can, okay!”

You make some sort of aborted hand movement that is firmly between a ‘what the fuck’ and a ‘don’t you fucking dare leave me with this’ as Hal swings a leg back over his bike and slides the helmet into place on his head. The second helmet is easily shoved into a compartment due to its tiny size.

“_Hasta la sayonara,_ Dirk. Don’t find me at the address I’ve left in Dave’s pocket if you need help! I will sincerely not await your letters in the near future!” Hal shouts as he starts up the bike, kicks off, and is rocketing back down the driveway like a bat out of hell.

Dave looks shellshocked, which is much like you feel but refuse to show. He half-yells a, “Wait, Hal, wait!” He stops right before he runs outside the house, looking down at the threshold like it’s a barrier he simply cannot cross.

And then he points those little peepers at you, and you can’t tell from where you’re standing, lost, in the circle of the beginning of the driveway, whether they’re bloodshot from emotion or they look like that normally.

He then surprises you by turning tail and fleeing into the house, much deeper than before when he was being a total contradiction by timidly exploring yet also sticking his little mitts on everything he could reach. You chase after him, forgetting to shut the door as you nearly slide right past him in the living room.

He’s tripped over the lamp Caliborn threw down the other night. The bulb had long since been obliterated in a previous supernatural tantrum, but you kept the thing around because it has a kitschy 60s shade with terrible art. Now it’s a child hazard.

Now _everything’s_ a child hazard.

There’s no parental instinct that takes over to tell you what to do like you’ve always read in books and seen in movies where the deadbeat dad is suddenly tasked with keeping a small child safe, sane, and fed, and like some descending angel, they are leveled up to Parent Tier with only some vague nudging from the plot devices they stumble across in their new relationship.

Instead all you get are sweaty palms and a four year old who refuses to let you touch him as he cries out for the other dude who looks exactly like you that’s left him high and dry.

“Fuck,” you say, real eloquent like, in a way that isn’t appropriate for a four year old’s delicate little ears. The ones that are turning so red that you’re becoming worried whether he’s breathing or not in between all that yelling. “Dave, I’m. Hal’s left. It’s me – Dirk. Hal isn’t coming back.” That was likely not the best thing ever to say. “I’m your older brother.”

Dave only squalls louder, squashing the plush crow Hal had probably lovingly sewn for him to his chest and getting snot and tears and spit all over it. You resist the knee-jerk reaction to yank it away from him to clean it, because that’s not the most emotionally grounded thing to do right now.

Every attempt made to hold Dave close ends in higher-pitched screams, ones you could avoid if only you’d plug your ears. But again, that is productive solely to being a selfish asshole, and not productive towards being someone Dave would stop crying for.

Thank god Caliborn isn’t here right now, you think, as Caliborn seeps into the room like a malignant devil who heard his name from inside your mind. He’s green and heat, and he is not welcome.

“SILENCE THE CHILD. OR ELSE I WILL DO IT MYSELF.”

Dave hops up and down on his feet and buries his face into his crow completely. His cries are muffled now, and he can’t dodge you when you scoop him up in an inexperienced way and nearly dump him right back on the floor again when he squirms.

You mumble a distracted, “Wait,” as you slide past the poltergeist hovering at the edge of the doorway, a ghostly wallflower. You set Dave down on the couch, where he rolls to his side like some kind of encumbered and overwhelmed pumpkin.

You flex your hands a few times, then sit down as well. Rubbing his back seems like a good idea, so you do that. Nothing explodes, so you keep doing that.

It takes less time than you thought it would for something to change, and that’s more scary than you were expecting, because the change comes from Dave going lax and quiet. You spend a few long seconds entrenched in sheer panic before you realize that he’s literally cried himself to sleep. You wonder absentmindedly how long he and Hal were on that bike for.

A new situation you must now deal with drools on your ugly and definitely not sanitary couch.

Caliborn hovers threateningly over the long unused fireplace. He’s a miasma of sharp colors, never locking together long enough to form a full figure. You make eye contact through your shades, and his eerie red eyes are startling enough to your survival-based system that you look away involuntarily.

“Don’t touch him,” you start out with, gaining steam. “Don’t scare him, or throw things at him, or yell at him. Hell, don’t even look at him. Don’t do anything to Dave. He’s off limits. He’s,” _fragile, different, scared all on his own, precious,_ “too young.”

Caliborn lets out a rumbling growl that shatters any lingering peace your new guest has brought into the house. “DO YOU THINK YOUR PITIFUL PLEAS WILL STOP ME? THIS IS MY TERRORTORY. YOU ARE MERELY A PEST, SOON TO BE SQUASHED UNDERFOOT.”

“You feet can’t be corporeal,” you divergently argue. “You think I’m fucking around right now then you’re stupider than I thought before. I don’t care if you throw your tantrums at me, but you are not allowed to do that shit to Dave. He didn’t come here on purpose.”

There’s a breath of hot air sweeping throughout the room before Caliborn disappears and reappears somewhere much too close. “IS THAT AN INVITATION?”

Unconsciously, your hand curls over Dave’s tiny shoulder like it could protect him from everything and yet nothing at all. “Is it.”

Caliborn’s green grin sparkles with his gold tooth. “DIRK STRIDER. YOU ARE ALSO. STUPID.”

And then he fades in both vision and presence. Dave’s breathing evens out. Yours begins again, unaware that it’d stopped at all.

Shit just got really fucking complicated, didn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7S5TL6N0A)   
[[CLICK HERE for minions curry]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRpgWv7M7ds)


	2. All Your Colors Start To Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Implied/referenced child abuse, description of injuries/burns, threats of violence, child endangerment, mentions of attempted murder/attempted kidnapping, nightmares, mild misogyny, humorous references to kink, child neglect, mentions of drowning, unsafely scissor actions, cruelty to insects.

When Dave wakes up sometime that early evening and is no longer singing the song of his people – that is, traumatized little kids – you force yourself to explain the new home situation to him. Who you are, who Hal is, who Dad was as someone who will never show up again.

For better or for worse, he takes it stoically. So much so that you’re worried he didn’t understand a word you’ve said, but then he gives the tiniest nod known to man, and you feel acute relief.

You get stuck on explaining Caliborn. Who he is, _what _he is, what he _wants… _It’s a mystery even to yourself, though you’ll hesitate to admit non-control in the face of an innocent child.

So you don’t. Not in full, not as much as you should, and you know it. You tell Dave that the house is haunted, but it’s okay because you struck a deal with the ghost, who might be scary, but has agreed not to hurt him. Again – you didn’t exactly get a written contract from your poltergeist, but you’re trying your best to believe in this verbal agreement yourself. Believe that you’ve got everything under control here. Everything safe.

Dave has nothing to say to that, unsurprisingly. You think he may be in shock. You think you may also be in shock, faced with the reality of your living situation. Of what, exactly, you’ve resigned yourself to, now exposed from an alternate perspective. You stare at him in silence for longer than necessary, as if you aren’t going to have the time to in the years to come.

Lord almighty… Years. _Years._ Kids, for all they are already born as people, grow up. And now you’ve got one.

You’re going to have to find a dentist and a doctor and… Wait, is a pediatrician the same thing as a doctor? Do you need both? How old until kids should be shipped off to school? Does this sleepy town even have a school? Surely, it has a school system, if not three age tier public schools and a community college…

You need to find a fucking weed dealer first is what you need to do, or else your neurotically fried mind is going to be less than helpful for this kid.

Then again… do you really want Dave exposed to drugs like that? You heard smoking weed, or anything really, is bad for pets. Not that you’re… comparing Dave to a pet, you just meant, with little kids and all… pets are theoretically comparable in terms of constitution… Which isn’t to say that… You… Uh…

Goddammit it’s been less than a day and you’re already fucking things up.

You slap your own knee and barely remember Dave is still there, sitting on the couch with you, when he visibly flinches. He’s not _not_ peeking at you from his peripherals, and you’re struck with a feeling of helplessness that you cannot stand.

“I’ll go get your room situated,” you tell him in a quiet voice, getting up. There’s wet tracks of various child fluids soaking into your shirt but you act like it’s no big deal, for his sake or perhaps more selfishly for your own. “Stay down here for now. If Cal bothers ya’ just uh… Just holler.”

Another tiny nod that could be easily mistaken for a flinch. You’re unsure when physical comfort should happen, so you don’t touch him as you walk past the couch, the kitchen, and then up the stairs.

Time to run yourself chore-ragged in the hopes of having some time to figure all this shit out. It basically never works but you’re about to do it anyways.

You drag the full-sized mattress out of your room and into Dave’s new one: the left room bracketing the bathroom in the second floor hallway. Building him a metal frame out of spare bits you brought in the move but have no idea what they were initially meant for, you lament that you’ve yet to sleep a full night in your room anyways. Dave can have the bed, yourself taking the ugly couch downstairs like you had been already. Your room could be used for more projects now with the mattress gone.

Still, his seems woefully bare. And dirty, since you’d never cared about cleaning spaces you weren’t actively using, or ones Caliborn would mess up again if you _had _gone out of your way to clean them. You compromise both of these problems by dragging up the miraculously still intact broom and a bucket of soapy water to give the place a general wipe-down. If you feel like a total idiot when you have to get on your hands and knees to clean under the now ten-ton metal frame bed you built in here without forethought, then the only one who has to know that is you.

And also Caliborn, who hovers over your shoulder like the worst hot, dry Texas breeze. He refrains from showing himself, and your anxiety builds over what he might do next, but he doesn’t break anything, either. He does, however, ghost an unsettling laugh every time you bang your knee on something, which happens more times than you care to admit.

You’re almost relieved that he’s so obviously haunting you, instead of being an unknown integer that could possibly be haunting Dave instead.

When you go back downstairs to empty the water bucket and smack the broom against the side of the house to deposit the dust, Dave is sitting in the entrance way with the door open, watching and listening to nature. If he’s never left Houston before now, then this must be his closest encounter with it. You prop the dusty broom up on the wall and decide to disturb his peace as later as possible.

You leave him one of those cute but inadequately sized Uncrustable PB&J sandwiches you’d been shamefully subsisting off of for like three weeks and a bottle of water. You’ll get the strawberry jelly and apple juice later. Kids need a lot of nutrients. Supposedly. No, not ‘supposedly’ – factually.

You don’t wait around to watch him eat since you figure that’d be creepy coming from a guy he got dumped on the doorstep of less than a day ago, so you make yourself busy and re-purpose a side table discarded near the edge of the kitchen and haul that upstairs to Dave’s room.

It fits perfectly next to his bed, but the room is still missing a lot. Stuff you can’t provide right now, not without leaving, or not without inviting delivery people up to your isolated plot. His mattress has no sheets nor boxspring, but you make do with a few abandoned quilts you’d previously washed. They look handmade.

You get an idea on how to utilized the unused, and begin installing a pole in the doorless closet for hanging clothes from. You took it from your own closet because none of your shit will ever get hung up and that’s the truth. Despite only having the one set of clothes he’s currently wearing, you hope maybe Dave will be cleaner than you if you encourage him to properly organize now.

At that harrowing thought of the predicted future, you have to pause in consideration. Absentmindedly, you test the strength of the metal pole by grabbing it and putting most of your weight on it. It’s solid.

You need to contact Roxy and ask them for help. Help of the haxing flavor.

Technically, Dave isn’t yours. He’s your younger brother by about fifteen years – another note to make: you need his birthdate and SSID – but he’s not _your _kid. Neither you or Hal could legally run off with him like this.

You wonder about Dad's 24/7 surveillance with the cameras. You were ballsy enough to steal or destroy them whenever you found them by the time you hit puberty, but Dave is only four. And Hal is definitely skilled enough to get past anything Dad set up, you don’t doubt that. You need to know what Dad intended to do about his bastard child he undoubtedly wanted to ‘train up’ like he did to you, and tried to do to Hal before your twin lost several limbs and gained the ability to verbally flay people alive. Namely you.

Thankfully, your unnamed mother paid for Hal’s hospital and therapy bills; Dad had easily admitted on planning to give him a mercy death. Then you and Rox had stepped up to build his prosthesis, even though you still think Hal was a total ungrateful wad about it.

You come back to yourself because of the way your forehead is painfully being pressed into the pole in front of your face, and how that pole feels about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than it should be.

Jerking your head back with a hiss, you nearly jump right into Caliborn’s writhing mass of cherry-green hate, except the air around him is even hotter than the metal pole was. If you try to walk through him like a fucking ghost from Harry Potter or some shit, you’ll be boiled alive.

So of course that means the asshole is going to essentially hotbox you in this closet with his own weird spectral particles while you sweat and twitch.

“THE DECORATIVE LITTLE MEAT SACK. HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.”

“Okay.” Caliborn does not leave. Forcefully up close, his shifting non-form is dizzying to take in visually. “Then move so that I can prevent this.”

“IT HAS ALSO CONSUMED THE OFFERINGS.”

You blanch. Then you understand. “Great; he’s fed, watered, and wandering out alone into the woods like the remix of Little Orange Ridin’ Hood I don’t intend to experience. Now move.”

The poltergeist responds by pressing what you assume to be his equivalent of a thumb, or a claw, into your hip where your shirt rides up. You make an involuntary noise at the pain of searing flesh, unable to back away even as your instincts make you spasm and hit your head on the closet rack, but as soon as it’s happening, he’s stopped. Gone.

You don’t waste time gawping at your new injury. You race over to the open window of the bedroom that conveniently looks down onto the dirt-gravel clearing right in front of the house.

Sure enough, pale little Dave in his orange hoodie stuffed full with plushie is wandering around, poking at things on the ground that not even your eyes can see.

“_Dave,”_ you call out. Instantly, he freezes and spins around. He looks up a second later, fists clenched. You can’t make out his expression from here, but you feel guilty anyways. “Stay where I can see you. Don’t wander too far. It’s not safe.”

He doesn’t nod, or move. He simply stares upwards.

Okay.

You nod for him, then step back from the window until you’re sure you’re out of sight, and give a great billowing sigh.

The itchy, throbbing pain of your hip makes you bite your lip as you look down, pulling your shirt up to inspect it.

Jesus Christ, it’s an ugly wound.

The only thing that comes to mind as you take it in, this strange little circle with unevenly overlapping ends like an untied spooled string, or a snake curled in on itself, is ‘That’s a brand.’ It’s bright red and going to blister, you’d wager. Going to scar.

You side-step and lean against the wall next to the window, curious fingers poking at the new injury even though every touch hurts.

You really need to talk to Roxy.

* * *

Nightmares. You thought you of all people knew intimately what a nightmare was before, but you didn’t truly know until now, until here.

It won’t stop – the nights you manage to meet full REM sleep for redundancy meetings are full to the brim with fear that you have no control over. Once you’re down and out, you are not let go until the sun rises. It’s an ineffectively effective way to get full nights of sleep, which is entirely unlike you and so obviously you end up fighting it for a few days before collapsing.

You have always been a lucid dreamer. Before your insomnia set in, before sleep became an unnecessary facet of humanity that you wished you could edit out, you were a lucid child first. It was never allowed to detract from your waking life’s awareness, but it was another way for you to cope with your increasingly violent father, distant twin brother, and doomed obsession with a green-eyed boy.

However, since you’ve come here, and aside from the first night you’d spent outside, your unconscious lucidity has vanished. A gift you took for granted all your childhood, like a metaphor it gets snatched away come adulthood. In your dreams, you are not in control. When you wake up, you are faced with a reality in which you are still not in control, at least in some areas. Especially when Caliborn and Dave are in the same room as you, their expectations and unpredictable behaviors spreading roots and making unavoidable ley lines out of your veins.

What’s even more frustrating is that, for all that your nightmares are terrifying and awe-some as they occur, you simply cannot force yourself to fully remember them when you wake up. You shake and you shiver with a triggered fight-or-flight attack – which, granted, isn’t anything new to you – but you cannot recall your dreams like you used to.

What sticks with you is mostly feelings. The feeling of spasmodic fear, the feeling of hands crushing parts of you that shouldn’t be crushed, the feeling of dream-like lack of consequences and carelessness. But never events, never words, never heavy symbolism.

Always Caliborn.

Dave has not exactly reported a lack of sleep or tainted dreams to you, but then again you wouldn’t yet expect him to. Things are… rocky, to put it simply. Awkward. Quiet. He hasn’t cried like he did when Hal left, but he also hasn’t shown any emotions other than perhaps apathy or nervousness. With your own uncontrollably flat mien and near-inability to ‘normally’ interact with people IRL, much less children, you have no clear plan on where to go from here. You try your best, you tell yourself, while you distinctly feel as if you are hardly doing anything correctly at all.

You are not equipped for other people, or translating your obsessive affections into something tangible, usable. You’re still learning how to buy groceries for two people, how to budget, how to interact with someone who doesn’t want you dead, how to interact with a _thing _that may or may not want you dead while it has access to the person who doesn’t want you dead.

It’s hard. It’s hard and nobody understands, you mentally whinge, even as you are objectively aware that nobody understands because you haven’t given anybody a chance to yet.

Caliborn seems to be the only one in higher spirits (hah), appearing more often and now beginning to set things on fire instead of only heating the room or the skin. It’s a concerning leap of power levels, but your hypothesis on the matter go untested and unsolved while Dave is around. Were you alone, you’d’ve suicide bum rushed the thing at least three separate times now, but you’re not, so you have to settle for making peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches with a knife that’s too hot to be comfortably handled.

Although your theory that the ghost gains more ‘energy’, which is what you’ll call it for a lack of other terms to use, with the higher count of people living in his ‘terrortory,’ seems to hold steady in that Caliborn has not attempted to truly kill the either of you, despite having multiple opportunities to do so.

* * *

Dave periodically calls you ‘Hal’, or perhaps asks for Hal’s presence in a way you can’t understand, and you seriously don’t know what to do with that. Before Hal’s need of prosthesis and his penchant for hair bleach, it used to be the other way around; people at school would call out for Dirk, and instead get your bitchy, mute twin with the personality disorder and eyes consistently red with an obvious, self-medicated high. The last time you fought with him about stupid shit, it was a point he continuously brought up.

Now all you can imagine is his smug, smug face as he perches on his bodybuilder boyfriend’s lap in Japan, surrounded by cats, dumbbells, and expensive machinery.

Technically, you both got a happy ending, since any ending is bound to be better than spending the last of your exhaustive days with your shitty family, but you’ll be damned if you aren't jealous of him right now.

“_Mmmph!_ No!” Dave whines as you once again offer him a spoonful of applesauce.

You don’t understand. Hal said Dave likes applesauce. Why won’t Dave eat the applesauce? Is it you? Is he sick? It it the texture? The flavor? Did Hal lie to you? No, he wouldn’t, not if it meant putting Dave in danger of starving. You hope.

Dave drags his crow plush back onto his lap even though you told him not to do that because the toy – named Sprite for some reason he won’t tell you – would get dirty. And he would get upset if Sprite got dirty. But now that it seems like Dave is done with eating forever and ever unless Hal magically reappears to make it all better, Sprite is back in his zip-up hoodie.

You resist sighing too obviously and cap the applesauce. “Okay. Come get me if you’re hungry.”

Dave tries to hurriedly hop down from the counter while you’re putting the applesauce back in the fridge, which makes you feel stupid for turning away in the first place when you knew he’d do his best to become the world’s fastest kid to escape.

His untimely descent onto the linoleum where he would surely splatter into a bunch of tiny, fragile child pieces is halted when Cal abruptly appears directly in front of him.

Dave freezes up in what is undeniable horror. The poltergeist, from toe to tip, towers over him like the demon you once accused Cal of mirroring.

“DO NOT JUMP DOWN WITHOUT ASSISTANCE.”

“Don’t touch him,” you warn as you notice one of Caliborn’s previously incorporeal hands form into a hot red barrier near Dave’s head. “Your corporeal form is several thousand degrees. He’d be safer jumping down and skinning a knee than he is holding onto you to do it.”

Caliborn makes some sort of unsettling growling noise. The refrigerator door smacks into your hip, right where he’d branded you, and then slams shut again. You sincerely have to fight back a yell at the pain.

“FUCKER.” The poltergeist sibilates as you walk past him and ease a fright-stiff Dave down to the floor, where he bolts immediately for the stairs up to his room. “HOW WILL THE CHILD ONE DAY MAKE A PACT WITH ME FOR HIS SOUL. IF WE DO NOT RAISE HIM TO DEPEND UPON MY PROWESS? MORON.”

“_We’re_ not raising him anywhere to do anything. _I’m_ raising him not to be a fuckin’ fool who makes soul-selling pacts in the first place.” You peel an orange. Dave must bump into something, as there is a clattering sound from above. There’s no child screams, though, so you respond by tossing the rind into the overflowing trashcan. “Is that compost pile outside home to any illicit murder victims of yours or am I good to tear it down.”

“COMPOST?” Cal moves around the kitchen in an indistinct pattern. “THAT IS NOT A COMPOST. THAT WAS A SHITTER HOUSE.”

The poltergeist laughs at your mildly disgusted expression and disappears.

* * *

Another unidentified vehicle is making the valiant journey across the untamed valley of your driveway.

It rocks your equilibrium, once again, but this time you’re almost positive it isn’t anybody you know. Hal’s already set off across the sea, Jake is a pipe dream at this point, Rox promised not to try too hard to find you, Jane doesn’t even know you’ve left, and if it were Dad or one of his ‘friends,’ they wouldn’t bother to use the driveway. Too obvious of an entry point. You comfort yourself with the macabre thought of how if Dad wanted you while knowing where you are, you’d be dead or kidnapped already.

Dave seems curious, but not afraid. Still, he listens intently when you calmly instruct him to stay in his room, and to keep out of sight of his window.

Once it gets close enough, you identify it as a navy blue van. A large one, but not as large as the white moving truck you’d used to transport your stuff here. You stand and wait outside in full visibility like you did the last time somebody dared disturb your ghost-infested peace. For a moment, you wish you had one of Roxy’s big hunting guns to heft, even though you have no idea how to use one. You figure it’d look more intimidating than the weebish faux-katanas you were ‘taught’ to use.

Doesn’t matter, though; once your single katana was melted and used against you, it seems as if Caliborn might’ve eaten it somehow, because you sure as hell don’t know where its remains went. You’re almost glad for being absolved of duty towards your old affects, but mostly you just feel apathetic about it.

When the van stops, quite slow and easy compared to the dramatic dust cloud Hal had stirred up, a middle-aged or possibly older woman hops out with a big, easy smile.

“Good morning, Mister Lalonde!” She crows your recently changed last name (courtesy of the only Lalonde you know, who seemed unduly excited for you to ask to borrow their name) waving you forward, before circling around back of the van, yanking it open with surprisingly steady arms. “I’ve some packages for you today, young sir. Five of them, actually.”

You pause, before stepping forward to go look. You admit you’ve never been faced with this amount of open enthusiasm from a stranger before, but nothing about her is triggering any of your warning sirens. Despite this, you are hyper aware of Dave’s hidden location inside the house.

“My name is Miss Maggie,” she tells you, her diction clear and loud, but not painfully so. “I work at the town post office, and boy let me tell you, there sure are stories going on around town about you and this old house.”

You’d rather like to know what these random podunk people are saying about you when you’ve never even met any of them, but Miss Maggie interrupts by dropping a large box at your feet. “That’s not important right now, though. Here, let me carry all of these inside for you. Is your tyke too shy to come outside? I’ve been told these are all for your little one, Mister Lalonde.”

“My younger brother,” you correct, and fumble to help her carry all five boxes inside before this fifty-something year old woman decides to make like Wonder Woman and heft two in each arm or something. You stop her before she breaches the threshold. “I’m sorry, but who sent these exactly. If you know.”

For a hot second, she is visibly awash with wide-eyed panic. “Hal Strider – I’m so sorry, I thought maybe one of you had gotten married or changed names. Said he was your brother. Was I mistaken? Do you need help?”

You try not to sigh in a mixture of relief and frustration, plopping the first box down into the entrance way and gesturing her to do the same. “No, it’s alright. He is my brother, yes. He decided not to warn me that he’d apparently ordered an entire store’s worth of stuff for our younger brother.”

“Oh, okay!” Miss Maggie says with another great big smile. The two of you go and grab another set of boxes, and you hurry slightly so that she won’t have the chance to grab the last one. “So ah, er, Mister Lalonde, do you mind if I ask why someone as young as yourself is out here all alone? And with a little brother? If you’re raising him without any help, well, I...”

You deflect slightly. “Hal had already been accepted into a college overseas. And, well, our parents aren’t around anymore…” Technically true.

Thankfully, she nods quickly and easily, obviously eager not to press anymore buttons. “Right, right – sorry for being such a pest, Mister Lalonde,” she apologizes, and somehow manages to make it to the fifth box before you can. You try not to feel uselessly awkward as she carries it to the house by herself.

“It’s not a problem.” It is something of a problem, from your perspective as a paranoid abuse victim who knows your Dad will latch on to any leaked information like a leech to the hapless protagonist’s leg, but you leave it at that.

Miss Maggie briefly looks up at the open window of Dave’s bedroom, no doubt where the kid is eavesdropping, before seeming to remember her place as a simple delivery person and giving you another smile, reaching out her hand for a shake. “Just a few papers to sign, and you’ll be all set.”

Several minutes later, she’s back in the driver’s seat, buckling in. She pauses before leaving, however, to lean out her window and say, “Hope you enjoy your stay in Gravity Falls, Dirk! Some pretty weird and unexplained things have happened here, you know.”

“Oh, have they,” you drawl, desperately fighting down the urge to tell her that one of her unofficial customers is a ghost.

Her van is barely beyond the treeline when you turn around to find Dave already sticking his hands all over the boxes haphazardly left in the doorway. Caliborn is, surprisingly, hovering over top of him, the half-opened kitchen scissors floating way up above his head.

“TRIED TO OPEN IT HIMSELF.” Caliborn is a snitch. You raise an eyebrow down at Dave, who throws himself on top of one of the boxes and whines with his cheek pressed up against it.

“I can do it!” Claims the four-year-old, scrabbling at the indestructible shipping tape like a cat with rubber nibs on its claws.

“Well, if I also only had one set of clothes to wear, I’d probably be eager for something new to change into, too.” While pushing back the strange jealousy you feel over Dave no doubt being so eager to open the box because it’s from Hal, you reach up and snatch the scissors out of the air with your superior height. Caliborn gives them over with minimal fight, though you can tell he nearly cut you with the light resistance he pulls the other end with.

If it were one of your first weeks living here, you’d honestly question his restraint, but you’ve learned better by now.

You only stay with one box long enough to shove it further into the house so that you can close the door, slice them open, and then move on to the others. Dave descends upon their contents like a starving hyena, pulling out what appears to be mostly clothes, toiletries, and snacks mixed in with a small amount of his old stuff from Houston.

You’re impressed at the lengths Hal seems to have gone to get what’s rightfully Dave’s back from your collective father’s clutches. But now you’re wary of what he could possibly desire as payment. No lunch is ever free with your twin.

Dave snatches a blanket out of a box and sprints behind the couch, clutching it while peering around the ugly green furniture as if he’s waiting for you or Caliborn to come take it from him. You feign disinterest as you begin categorizing what you find, putting them into piles on the thankfully now much more clean floor around you, making mental notes of what will go where, what needs to be washed before Dave uses it, and so on.

There’s a note from Hal in the fifth box, but you pocket it for later, almost positive that it will have child-unfriendly language somewhere in it. Since it’s from Hal, Dave would definitely want it if he knew about it, so for now you give in to subterfuge.

Dave tiptoes out of his hiding spot after a few minutes of peace, now trusting that his comfort item – a clean white, blue, and yellow My Little Pony baby blanket – will not be harshly stolen from him. He drapes it around his shoulders while he pilfers the piles, making excited little movements whenever you dump something new in front of him that you’ve deemed safe. At some point, he sneakily opens one of the included packets of soft, dried apple slices. You run your fingers through his childishly soft and clean hair to reassure him that he’s allowed to eat it.

About an hour of categorizing on your part, too-quiet rambling and playing on Dave’s part, you stand up to stretch and realize that he’s fallen asleep curled up on the couch. You quietly gather up all of the new clothes you need to wash, make sure his blanket is tucked in tightly around him, and are off to go hand-scrub everything down. You check the weather on your phone and find that it isn’t supposed to rain today, so you can hang everything out to dry on the line behind the house with no hassle.

Seriously though, you’ve got to think about getting a washer and dryer. Perhaps even you could afford one of those minis you saw all over the internet a few years ago. When you thought you’d be living alone with barely one load of wash every two weeks like a dirty heathen, you didn’t mind doing it old school, but now the amount of clothing needing to be washed every week has increased exponentially.

Figures Hal couldn’t send you one of those, you complain mentally as you clip damp shirts and pants and underwear up onto the line. You feel vertigo as you imagine yourself as some kind of beleaguered housewife from the 40’s, quietly keeping her complaints of her soldier husband to herself as she raised his children.

With that line of thought, it’s no wonder Caliborn’s sudden appearance startles you into dropping your handful of pins.

When you bend down to pick them up, a lick of flame touches your nape, and you drop your pins all over again when you slap a hand over the back of your neck and turn around to almost glare, steeling your expression at the last moment.

“Shouldn’t you be watching over Dave,” you chastise lightly as you pick up the fucking pins all over again. “Making sure he doesn’t try to harness the awesome power of scissors once again to tear open the walls in his sleep.”

Caliborn doesn’t respond, knocking your bottle of washing soap over so that some of it spills into the grass. Thankfully, your reflexes are fast enough to catch it before it empties entirely.

“GIVE HIM NIGHTMARES. IF I STAY TOO CLOSE.”

It’s strangely considerate. “Didn’t know you could travel outside the house like this,” you say instead of acknowledging any of that, pinning up your own underpants to the line.

A mysteriously hot breeze ruffles them, but Cal seems to stop before he tears them off or sets them on fire. He can be strangely coy at times.

“NOW YOU KNOW.”

You make a mental note that he seems weakened in both power and visibility when this far from the house. As a minor test, you spend as much time outside as feasibly possible while still having something to do.

Sure enough, he barely speaks, nor interacts with anything beyond a few pinpoint touches of fire every now and again to trip you up. You, at first, mistook it for an invasion of fire ants or bug bites, which gave him no end to the entertainment that is you looking around and slapping your own calves in bare-faced confusion.

When you sit down on the backyard’s perfectly shaped Sittin’ Boulder to read Hal’s letter, the ghost’s presence has faded almost entirely. Though you’re positive he’s somewhere nearby, given his reluctance to be alone with Dave.

* * *

You have no idea at what age you’re supposed to stop sitting with kids while they bathe, but when you checked in on Dave one time while he was in the bath and saw him completely submerged, you damn near had a heart attack.

Fortunately, Dave claims that he was simply “swimming,” which would be adorable if you’d known that in the first place. You’ve taken to, at the very least, sitting next to the tub while he scrub a dub dubs. You don’t know when you’ll stop and go back to the ‘occasionally checking in’ system, but for right now, you feel like your heart wouldn’t be able to handle not having him in direct eyesight.

Dave floats a rubber toy around in the tub, soap bubbles stuck to his head like he doesn’t give a crap about actually cleaning up. He doesn’t know what shampoo and conditioner is, or why he might want to use some. Doesn’t read the ingredients in his soap. He’s just interested in playing with water.

Kids are scary.

Their bodies are so tiny. You don’t think you were ever that tiny. For once, you have no accurate probability-based prediction for the future – you don’t know who Dave will be in a month, or a year, or five, ten, twenty. If you’ll still be here, with him, when that time comes. If he’ll continue on as this quiet, timid, yet curious little mind, or if he’ll grow into someone loquacious, determined, and creative.

You reach over and play with his hair, and he lets you. Doesn’t react, but doesn’t shy away, either.

You poke his nose, and he gifts you with a small smile.

He’s so amazing.

At that thought, you feel encumbered with something complicated. Feelings of blooming affection mixed with possessive thoughts that have no place sullying this innocent scene. You’re giving him a bath, not a baptization. There’s no significance here. He most likely won’t remember this, years down the line.

It’s just another bath, to him. To you, it’s a cornerstone.

He doesn’t truly need any help in getting in or out of the tub, but you find yourself hovering anyways, holding up the towel for him to run at like he’s throwing himself into a pile of clouds. It’s a cheap, but fluffy, thing that you’d bought at a dollar store. You got them in a variety of colors, because you heard kids like colors.

He giggles openly, and dances around in his birthday suit like this one yellow towel is the best thing he’s ever touched, and you… Don’t know what to feel.

As per usual, once he’s been released from the bathroom, he bolts to his room like he’s training for the Kentucky Derby. Today, however, things end a mite different, in the way he halts before his open bedroom door, turns around, and gazes at you.

You’ve been frozen in place with the abrupt change in routine. You stare back, lost.

As if to oppose you, he rocks back and forth on his heels. “Can you…?” He doesn’t finish.

“You need something,” you question. “Is that big ol’ bogeyman in your room. Need me to chase him out.”

“No...” He hedges, looking around the hallway like he can spot Caliborn seeping through the walls. Despite being invoked in everything except name, the ghost does not appear. “Um, can you come do my hair?”

You say, “Yes,” without thinking first, because your following thought is ‘I don’t know how to do any hair other than my own.’ And Dave’s hair, thin and pale, is nothing like your own coils that can hold volume better than a full glass of water. It’s how you get the spikes to form easy. But it’s also why you near constantly wear a black satin headband, because as cool and essential as anime hair used to be to you, now it simply gets in the way of your fraught lifestyle.

Nevertheless, you make your way into Dave’s room like one would make their way into a lion’s den.

It looks a lot different now that there’s somebody living in it. You’ve slowly but surely managed to fill the room with stuff Dave seems to enjoy, despite nearly all of it being from the same penny pinching store as the towels are. You’re glad Dave has yet to give a fuck about the difference between a knockoff piece of game hardware and a genuine one. You can’t say you dread the day he does, though, imagining what he’d do in a game like Skyrim or Minecraft.

He pile-drives his own bed, which shudders fantastically because it’s the first bed frame you’ve ever slapdashed together. He doesn’t seem to care, rustling around on it in his cute little panda Pjs like it’s a bouncy house.

Your li’l bro seems to notice you hesitating. In response, he sits primly on his legs in a folded position, then gently pats the space beside him while looking imploringly at you, stuck standing in the doorway like you've never used one before.

You snort. “You got your brush.”

“Yup.”

“Have you readied your scalp for the battle to come.”

He doesn’t seem to fully understand what you mean, but his face becomes determined anyways. “Yes.”

_Don’t laugh at him,_ you tell yourself as you situate your body behind his on the bed, _do _not_ laugh at him or else he’ll never let you in here again._

For some reason, Dave had picked out a girl’s brush at the dollar store. It’s pink with large particles of glitter baked into its semi-transparent appearance. You can’t imagine that a brush of plastic could be the healthiest, least friction-creating choice, but then again, you’re used to kinky hair.

Heh. Kinky.

Wow that was very wrong to think while next to a child. Shit you’re goin’ to hell.

You begin gently brushing Dave’s thin, wispy hair. Perhaps too softly, as you catch a few surprise tangles and have to use more force than you thought you would need to, although Dave doesn’t do so much as sniffle. Maybe he’s not tender-headed.

Once you think you’ve gotten everything smoothed out and detangled, you sneakily unwind one of the thin black satin scrunchies you constantly keep on your left wrist and tie a tiny ponytail onto one side of Dave’s head.

To your dismay, before you can surprise him with it in the plastic hand mirror he has, it slides right out.

Your attempts to not glare down at his hair like it’s some kind of alien species all fail as he picks up the scrunchie that fell to the bed with confusion, handing it back to you without turning around. “What’s this for?”

“Tying your hair up,” you answer, hopefully with as little disappointment in your voice as you’re capable of. “Well, tying _my_ hair up, anyways. Don’t think your hair’s meant for being contained, li’l dude.”

Oh no. Now you’ve got Dave offended on his behalf, as well. His face scrunches up and he paws at his head, grabbing little fistfuls and pulling outwards, “No, wait try again. I’m ready this time.”

Well, that’s adorable. Dutifully, you make the second attempt, this time with a thicker bunch of hair, but he’s only got so much to play around with.

It slides out faster than you can think ‘It’s not nice to tell a four-year-old “I’m sorry that you got your hair from your mom's side. Some day you’ll understand gel and hairspray.”’

You pat him on the head and take the culprit scrunchie away before he can cry or attack it or anything awful like that. “Hey, amigo, it ain’t no thing. Don’t worry about it – everybody’s got different hair. It’s like a blank slate. When you get older, you can dye it whatever color you want. How about that.”

Dave seems to consider it, dragging Sprite into his lap. “What about red.”

“Red sounds like a great color for your little head.”

“What’s ‘amigo’?”

Oh. Well, kids aren’t born knowing any language at all, you suppose. “Means ‘friend’ in Spanish.” You stand up from the bed, returning his girly brush to where it was on his side table. “Back in Texas, all the kids learned a bit of Spanish in school no matter who they were. Guess you’ll find out if you learn it when you start school. Some places teach French.”

Dave squirms around in his bed until he’s tucked under the covers, plain white ones because apparently there’s nothing fun for non-twin sized beds, thereby negating the need for you to do it for him. “I get to go to school?”

It’s a weird question, but you can’t pinpoint how or why. “Yea. You’re four years old, so you’ll start in Kindergarten. After that, you go from First Grade all the way up to Twelfth Grade, which is when you’re eighteen years old, and legally an adult.”

You’re unsure if that was all too technical of an answer for him, but he seems satisfied with the information you’ve given. You bid Dave goodnight from within his room instead of outside of his room this time. His question discomforts you, stuck on the back of your head as you walk downstairs.

‘I get to go to school?’ You can’t tell if you should be concerned. Did Dad tell Dave he wasn’t allowed to go to school? Why? And if not that, then has Dave never heard of school before?

Maybe you’re overthinking it, you argue with yourself, sitting on the downstairs couch in the dark, staring at nothing. Dad sent you and Hal to school. Why wouldn’t he have sent Dave to school? Dad definitely would not have qualified for home-schooling, so, why…

Not for the first time, you ache with the fridge horror of what could’ve possibly gone on in the apartment Dad kept Dave in. All four years of it.

It’s bizarre, but you almost wish Caliborn would show up, if only for the distraction.

* * *

The other day while in the midst of your thorough child-safety-ifying of this dirty old haunted house, you’d uncovered a whole stack of yellowed newspapers. Most of them seem to be deliberately collected from a bygone era of original Garfield cartoon strips. You’d glanced over them with mild interest, and then passed them on to Dave before Caliborn could get the bright idea to set it all on fire.

You are simultaneously delighted and tortured to know that Dave adores panel cartoons. Your interpretation is that it’s cute and fascinating to experience. However…

Meme status has been achieved.

Dave slams his overfull mug of AJ onto the table next to you, shouting, “Bean me!” for the third time today. A big glob of juice splashes everywhere, including the side of your left hand that is limply holding your cellphone.

You startle, and go, “God bless it,” in the most Texan twang that has ever graced your lips.

Dave looks over at you as if you’ve thrown a handful of roaches at him.

“Sorry,” you say, first and foremost, even though you’ve baldly cursed right in front of this four-year-old before and he’s barely reacted. “Isn’t that a little too much juice, hombre. Can your bladder fit that much AJ.” You pray the day that Dave learns what ‘bean me’ really means never comes. You can’t imagine what he’d be like on caffeine.

On the other hand, should your hypothesis of Dave potentially having ADHD be proven correct, perhaps he never will get the taste for an upper like caffeine in the first place.

He appears as if he’s seriously considering your scenario. You mop up the mess with a wet rag, and by the time you’re done, he’s absconded to some secret place you’re rarely allowed to go. His bedroom, namely. You’d be concerned if you didn’t already intimately understand that sort of defense mechanism.

You won’t admit it to even yourself at this point, but worrying about Dave and just what exactly your shared father did to him in those four and a half short years keeps you up at night.

That and Caliborn’s incessant rattling of the incredibly lopsided kitchen table you’ve yet to fix.

Not that you get an admirable amount of sleep in the first place.

After you’re done chugging the dubious contents of an off-brand energy drink, you go outside to prod curiously at the ‘shitter house.’ Potentially, it could become the new rotting home of all the orange peels and apple cores you and Dave leave behind every day.

* * *

Several hours later, the sun is going down. You’ve gone back in multiple times for some tools, which you really should move to the shed that sits behind the house, but frankly you don’t trust that thing not to be full of nasty shit like spiders and old politically conservative signs so you’re avoiding that. Best to focus on the actual living space for now.

As you rip the dilapidated wood structure down with your gloved hands, you uncover a couple of disturbing things such as: somebody stole the toilet and filled in the hole for unknown reasons with black shale. The door, which isn’t even recognizable as a door at this point, had been essentially welded shut with some substance you are unsure the origin of, but makes you suspiciously glance back at the house for any sign of Caliborn. And last but NOT LEAST is that there is an entire army of spiders in the far right corner. Hal would know whether they’re dangerous or not, but you don’t.

You take the hose and drown them all with great prejudice, glad that Dave isn’t out here to witness your ruthless murdering spree. You’ve been told before that kids don’t like seeing their guardians be afraid of stuff, and you are definitely possibly maybe afraid of arachnids, or really any insect that can touch you and make you feel like ripping your own skin off. So basically all of them.

Barely a minute later, however, Dave appears. Probably to see why you viciously sprayed something that is right up against the side of the house.

“Hey,” you say in a way that is, in your opinion, lame as hell. Either way, it fails to sway the godless persuasion of a small child, who makes his way over to curiously stare at what you’re doing. “This is gonna be a compost, where we throw food waste. Orange peels and apple cores. No meat, though.”

Dave doesn’t acknowledge what you’re saying, wandering even closer, picking carefully around the wet spots in the dirt. When he somehow manages to slip anyways, he does so with a nonchalant little, “Whups,” and then rights himself by clinging to your leg.

You look down and try not to panic, because that will surely make Dave panic, and then he’ll never casually touch you ever again.

While you go back to valiantly attempting to pretend like you know what you’re doing with this project, being observed by these wide child eyes full of wonder and trust, Dave begins to wind clumsy figure eights in between your legs, so you spread your stance a little so that he hopefully doesn’t fall again.

He doesn’t seem to take notice of your careful nuance. Go figure.

When you realize that you can’t get anything done with him underfoot like this, you say, “I’m busy, dizzy. Best go find something to do, before Caliborn gets all up in a tizzy.”

Dave makes a small chuffed noise, but listens, and detaches from your legs. He stands to the side and purses his lips, looking around for something to do.

You get an idea. Reach into your pocket for the crumbled up packet of tropically orange bubblegum sticks, and hand him one.

When his tiny fingers start to close around the stick, you yank it back lightly. “You know not to swallow this, right.”

Dave makes a face. “Think I’m stupid?”

“No, I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re four and a half, and the amount of things you do or do not know is not something I’m familiar with yet.”

At that declaration, you give him the gum. He stuffs the empty wrapper in his pocket, his careful chewing motions exaggerating his chubby cheeks as he swivels his head around and taps his fingers against his elbows.

“Why don’t you go try to find some bugs to poke at,” you suggest for him. “You can call Hal whenever he gets settled and tell him all about the kinds of bugs that are here.”

Dave seems unequivocally excited about that, and gallops side-ways off to the edge of the woods. You make a note on your phone to grab some poison ivy and oak and sumac lotions along with bug spray when you make time to go into the nearest town. ‘Nearest’ being almost 30 minutes away. Someplace called Gravity Falls. They at the very least have their own drug store and grocery, though the selection is mighty small compared to what a city rat like you was once used to.

You’d trade a minuscule family-owned grocery store for a huge city store with everything you could ever want any day, though, if it means peace of mind and safety.

As you take a hammer to the rest of the broken structure, you absently wonder if Miss Maggie will be there at the post office should you mail a few letters. You figured you’ll send one to Roxy, Jane, Jake, and of course another to Hal’s new address, like this is the fucking stone ages and not 2019. If you knew what you were doing, you’d go all Pen Pal on their unsuspecting asses and put postcards and leaflets and photographs in there, but you don’t, so they’ll just have to be happy with hand written plain white papers.

You get back to work. Surprisingly, you don’t have to studiously remind yourself to consistently check on Dave every few minutes, as the anxiety that courses in your veins like the blood that you were born with keeps you on your toes.

Dave mostly crouches around different fringes of the woods, carefully overturning rocks and small logs. There’s probably lots of bugs under there, like worms and rolly pollies, which aren’t actually insects apparently, but you aren’t going to ruin his fun with true information. School can do that for you.

You make decent progress despite your frequent stops to worriedly ogle your new kid. Sometimes he goggle-eyes you back. Those are weird moments, since you’re usually too far away to speak, but not so far away that he can’t see you freeze like a computer and slowly, with Dial-Up connection speeds, cycle through your options. You settle on a limp wave most times. Others, you make the both of you uncomfortable by doing nothing at all until he looks away first.

Christ on a cracker you are bad at this, you think as you finally get the entire old wood structure torn down. The fullest, least rotted pieces will be re-built into the compost structure. You debate on whether you want to get started on that today or save it for later.

As you suck water from your bottle and wipe sweat from your upper lip, you note that Dave has been continuously glancing at you from your peripherals. This makes you worried. He might have gotten into something he shouldn’t have, and now thinks he’s going to get into trouble. Waiting for you to notice.

You also begin to wonder if he’s thirsty. You feel guilty, looking down at the bottle you brought for yourself. You didn’t make sure he was ready to spend hours outside like this. You come to the stuttered conclusion that he possibly only came outside and stayed outside, doing what you’d told him to, because he doesn’t know yet that his life and choices don’t have to revolve around you.

Shit.

You walk over to him. All he’s doing is sitting on the conveniently shaped Sittin’ Boulder. He seems tired, or maybe bored. Both.

“You wanna head inside.” You proffer the water bottle in front of his face.

For a moment, you think he’s not going to take it. That you’ve miscalculated. Are kids more hardy then you’d been lead to believe? Is he so disgusted with you that he won’t want to drink after you?

Then, he shocks you with his speed as he snatches the bottle from your hand. He doesn’t go to drink it though, freezing once again with eyes wide, pointed at your boots. They’re pretty muddy.

You both pause. He must be waiting for you to make a move.

“Are you thirsty,” you ask. “You should have some water even if you aren’t thirsty right now. You’ve been out here for a few hours. I took a drink earlier. It won’t bite.”

Finally, stiltedly, he takes a drink. You’re grateful you got water bottles that were easy to drink from with only one hand or with minimal grip involved, since you’re now unsure if a kid as little as Dave could get a normal bottle open.

You’re overwhelmed, the moment a singularity of emotions, by how much you don’t know about Dave yet, and about how much could go wrong.

With every desperate swallow Dave takes, an increasing mountain of shame builds inside of you.

You don’t think you are currently the optimal version of yourself to do good, or be good. Whether you were born like this or you were raised like this, it doesn’t matter.

But you _want_ to do good. You want to _be _good for him, for the friends you’re strategically ignoring, for the brother you selfishly left behind in your crusade to escape your shared shitty situation, for yourself… Maybe not that last one so much.

When Dave’s done, he’s practically panting. He clutches the bottle close to his chest and slightly bows forward, as if he’s going to throw up.

“Are you okay,” you question, and it feels inadequate on an entirely new level. “You can have the rest of the bottle. We can go inside whenever you’re ready.”

Dave mumbles, “Okay...” He toys with the water bottle, and doesn’t look like he’s about to get up any time soon.

Your penchant for diving into projects for hours on end with no breaks is not something a kid should’ve unwillingly partaken in. Maybe he’s so tired he doesn’t feel like walking, or even worse, _can’t_ walk.

“Do you want me to carry you?” You ask with so much actual inflection for once that you almost don’t recognize who said that. “I… wouldn’t mind.”

For a moment, it seems as if Dave will not react, or answer you. But then you hear a soft-spoken, “Yes.”

Okay. Looks like you’re about to carry a kid for longer than two whole seconds. If it’s anything like carrying a computer tower, you’re all set, but if it isn’t…

You nearly forget to take off your dirty gloves first, banishing them to the ground beside the Sittin’ Boulder to easily find later. You reach out to Dave, hesitant yet determined not to show how much you don’t know. You need him to trust you, so that you can trust yourself.

With little more than a gesture, Dave is leaning towards you with his hands up and out, fully expectant that you’ll catch and support his weight.

You do. It’s easy, yet strange. A new experience. He weighs much less than any computer tower you’ve ever handled, but he’s softer, and warmer. When you heft him up into your arms, he naturally sits astride your left hip with his legs spread on either side of your torso, hand not holding the bottle coming to rest upon your shoulder, like he’s done this before.

You cannot reconcile the image of Dad actually holding Dave, taking care of Dave in any way shape or form like one is supposed to care for a child, so you don’t. You push it away. Who cares if Dad might’ve changed your diapers once, and then changed Dave’s. Who cares if Dad had Hal’s baby pictures, or took ones of Dave. You don’t care. You _shouldn’t _care. It doesn’t matter.

Dave is yours now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WA5O-MF6vs)   
[[CLICK HERE for roomates]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-P0m0M_8pc)


	3. There's A Dog In My Heart, And It's Teething

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Violence and threats of violence, description of burns and injuries, vivid descriptions of loss of control, horror elements, implied child prostitution, past child abuse, sex work, abusive relationships, past attempted child murder, emotional manipulation, implied survival sex, awful flirtations that border second-hand embarrassment, dehumanization, possessive behavior, minor torture, little kids cussing, referenced bullying, implied child neglect.

As innocent as a barium swallow, there is a tension between Dave and Caliborn that you admit to being torn on how to deal with.

Dave doesn’t like to acknowledge Caliborn; you make early conclusions that Dave must try to distance himself emotionally from stressful things happening right in front of him, and can predict why and how he does this, but that doesn’t lead you to a solution on it any sooner. At least, not one that fully weighs the proper responses to both a human child’s fear and an incomprehensible being of death’s compulsive desires.

Caliborn wants attention. You can spot this from a mile away. You won’t say it out loud because you recognize his ability to kill you in the most bloody, violent ways possible, but he does. From you, specifically, but from Dave by proxy as well. Technically, Caliborn 'promised' not to interact with Dave directly, but it happens sometimes whether you want it to or not, mentally flailing with the truth being that you still have no means to ensure Caliborn sticks to his end of the ‘bargain.’ Every single time, Dave will either freeze up and play possum, or he absconds. Usually up to his room, and sometimes out of the house entirely.

You’d immediately considered leaving for Hal’s or Roxy’s once the reality of Dave staying crashed down upon you in many weighty pieces, but that plan was nixed near instantaneously because you know, without a doubt, that Caliborn will react very, very badly to any attempts at moving out.

Before, when it was you alone, you’d been fine with this reality. A possessive, violent, volatile man-adjacent that didn’t want you to leave or ignore him? God, finally somebody who was as clingy as you, just as manipulative and needy and ruinous of convention. Beggars can’t be choosers. So what if he burns you? You wholeheartedly understand that you deserve the pain.

But as soon as Dave came into the picture on the front of Hal’s valiant petrol-spitting metal steed, your worries shifted drastically. Dave doesn’t deserve that pain. Dave doesn’t deserve a lot of things you currently do not have the proper control over.

You wonder if he’ll hate you when he gets older. You would. You’d hate you.

If you make Caliborn mad – which seems to happen pretty fucking often – will he go back on his word and terrorize Dave? Dave is already obviously uncomfortable with Caliborn around in the first place, try as he might to put on an expressionless face about it. What, realistically, could you actually do to make Dave safe and comfortable here if you can’t move him and you also can’t move Caliborn?

You ponder these worries for so long that you are blindsided when the two answer it for themselves, ignorant of your unspoken planing. You witnessed it firsthand, and felt entirely powerless to stop it.

Dave was picking his nose, which you’ve caught him doing before and told him not to do because, as you’ve explained, it’s unsanitary and could get him sick. He still does it sometimes anyways. It’s pretty gross, but you won’t act like you didn’t also do gross, unexplained things as a kid.

Before you could make a move to stop him, however, Caliborn appeared in front of his face. “DON’T.” The thing from every child’s worst nightmare growls so much louder and deeper than any lion, tiger, or bear.

Dave looked directly into the poltergeist’s burning eyes, red of blood to red of hell, and he let out an earsplitting scream of absolute terror, falling right where he stood.

After that, it was something of a blur. The temperature of the room kicked up to a near unbearable level, then abruptly cut off. Caliborn disappeared as quickly as he had appeared to scare the actual, literal piss out of Dave.

You remember, after the fact, how you’d pulled out all the stops trying to comfort Dave. Back rubs, wiping his tears and helping him blow his nose, a warm bath with the pink bubbles, fresh clothes, cuddles in his bed while you’d let him watch some pre-chosen videos on Youtube from your phone, talked to him about the computer tower and monitor you’ll fix up for him someday, and a promise extracted that you’d sleep in his bed that night, despite no sleeping whatsoever occurring until Dave uneasily dropped off come five AM.

But more vividly, beyond that, you remember the night terrors he’d had.

Even now, you won’t let yourself go into detail. You give him a spare pair of shades you’d brought with you, but they’re ill-fitting and you can tell.

“Wear these,” you impart the importance of them to him seriously, “and Caliborn can’t give you nightmares anymore. Nothing will be able to scare you if you wear your shades. Promise.”

He slots his pinkie finger intertwined with yours and shakes it up and down.

Like a dutiful little soldier, he wears his new shades every single day, only ever removing them to bathe or sleep. Sometimes not even then, as you’ve witnessed, but you won’t snatch the safety blanket you’ve given away so soon. Honestly, he should’ve been wearing sun protective eye wear before now anyways, but you chock it up to Dad’s negligence.

Caliborn befuddles you by completely vacating your sphere of awareness for three whole days. He doesn’t do something so oblique as apologize, which isn’t what you’d expect from him anyways, but he does make himself scarce enough that Dave has time to calm down.

Tellingly however, one day while you’re brushing Dave’s hair in his room after a bath, strands mostly untangled but you know the kid enjoys the preening anyways, a crow touches down on the ledge of his open window.

Dave gasps in wonder, struck still with his mouth open like a fish. You gently lower the pink brush and gaze openly at the corvid as well. Its eyes are backed by a red glow, almost imperceptible. When you check, Dave doesn’t seem to notice, consumed by the magic of wildlife.

The crow drops something heedlessly, and it clatters to the wood floor with the sound of the dimensions of an object that is small and metal. The doubtlessly overshadowed corvid gives out a haunting _caw!_ and flies off, wingspan large and glossy black.

Almost immediately, Dave is practically using your thighs as a launchpad as he throws himself to the floor, putting his grabby little hands all over his bird-given gift. He desperately scratches at the window ledge, trying to hop up onto it, head straining to look out of the window as if he can spot the elusive bird once more.

You manage to distract him from his self-made mission of throwing himself into the air and falling to his death by asking, “What did it bring you, Dave.”

He eagerly hops over to show you, possibly mimicking the way the crow had hopped across the window sill, but you aren’t positive.

In his little hand is a somewhat tarnished silver ring. Bland in design, but shiny, arguably something a normal crow would pick up should it be compelled to. Not that you think Dave would know or care to know this. There’s a barely-there design on the flat of it that is an ouroboros Celtic knot. As if unconsciously – which is absurd, because you pride yourself on being in control of your body if not also mind at the least – your hand drifts to your right hip. You clench a fist before skin can touch skin, and lay all of your fingers flat on top of Dave’s quilt.

You notice that it is a simply massive ring, likely made for hands larger than a child’s, and you find yourself offering, “I have a chain we could put that on. Wear it as a necklace.” Dave bounces in place and looks at you with unabashed glee, something that makes you feel almost faint with relief and yet also unfairly brings back feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. “After I clean it up, ‘course.”

Eager to have Dave be _okay_ again and for Caliborn to stop creepily, uncharacteristically skulking about, you wash the tarnish of the ring off in a bowl of warm water and dish soap. You get your pliers out and carefully bend a delicate pewter grey chain to accept the ring. Dave peers while you work, as if he’s making sure you don’t hurt the ring with your tools. You might get an actual silver chain to match it later, but for now, Dave acts like it’s his birthday.

“’M gonna go see if I can find Garfield,” he announces to you five minutes later, shoes half-tied, trying to run out the door without clarification. His new necklace bounces freely down his chest.

You chase after him, still drying your hands on an ugly mustard yellow dish towel you have no idea the origins of, or when it ended up in this house, but have added to your mishmash amount of laundry each week anyways. “Hold up, Speedy Gonzalez, your shoes are untied. Who’s Garfield.”

“The crow.” Dave is jittery, but stands in one place while you bend down and tie his shoes for him. When you’re done, you shove him lightly on his head, and he rockets out the door.

When you just so happen to look down on the floor to see what your bare feet are crunching though, you come to realize that Dave has stuffed his pockets full of unwrapped snack cakes, creating a crumb trail right out the door.

You get the broom and lament over how many more bugs will undoubtedly infiltrate the house because of this, but you don’t complain. You’re in too high of spirits to grumble.

One of the mugs sitting precariously at the edge of the counter from where you were mixing water and soap is suddenly overbalanced, rocking in circles several times before coming to rest with barely a centimeter between safety and ceramic doom.

You try to hide your uncontrolled expression in your shoulder under the guise of wiping away sweat from your upper lip. The hot ghost of touch across your right hip is the most overwhelming sensation you’ve felt in the past three days.

* * *

This place is so fucking backwater, you swear. The Elementary school’s homepage alone is like hitting a random URL on the WaybackMachine and it stops you at a site made during Internet 1.0 by somebody who only wanted one page to post an endless scroll of shitty cat pictures taken from a disposable camera.

The phone number at the bottom of this inaccessible modern disaster is giving you anxiety sweats, which is embarrassing as hell. Your stomach cramps, and it’s almost as if you know that you’ll inevitably give in to calling the school itself instead of languishing online. Like some deep, primal part of you can already smell the Eau de State Funded when you’ll be forced to drive down there yourself to pick up stacks upon stacks of papers. You have no printer at home. Even if you started out with one, you would’ve torn it apart. You have a headache now.

You don’t know much about enrolling kids into school, but you do know that you need to learn. Dave needs you to learn how to do stuff for him, because he can’t do it himself yet. You cannot fathom attempting to get Dave to navigate this nigh unusable website by himself, this year or any year thereafter. You have no other choice but to call, and then to inevitably look into some administrator's face, to get involved.

Well, that is technically not true. You do have the choice of home-schooling, but you’d shot that option down no matter how much better of a route it seemed for your delicate sensibilities. You won’t exactly be going to any PTA meetings, cozying up to any 9-to-5 Ma’s and Pa’s, but you also refuse to trap an impressionable, timid, traumatized kid in one haunted house alongside you and all of your own problems.

Dave needs to have a chance to get away from Caliborn. From you. To see what other kids act like with their own families, how they talk, how they make friends – basically how not to grow up like you. Othered and isolated, too damaged and flat in your affect. The struggle to be better than who you were taught to be, the constant failures. The unerring want of being needed, yet needing at the same time. The haughty disdain for other’s failures, as if you had not yet learned the definition of the word ‘hypocrite.’

At age four, Dave got out of a bad situation much earlier than you ever grew the chops to. The entire time you’d knowingly been taking what you’d been taught to heart, as if it would make you stronger. Irreparably hardening yourself while obsessively keeping up with martial arts training, the interest in anime and art, the stupid fucking Japanese swords, the sex work Dad seemed to introduce to you as young as possible. He had one more pair of tiny hands sewing, directing the stop motion, responding to forum comments. Nasty ones. You and Hal, when you actually acted like twins, or maybe partners in crime, created chatbots for Dad to use when y’all were barely thirteen. It boosted his ratings and views.

He rewarded you by crippling an already disabled Hal beyond his definition of usefulness.

Caliborn shades into your bedroom with a near-imperceptible fluctuation of heat. His green, waxy, dripping form coming through the wall so suddenly startles you enough that you accidentally jerk a knee up, colliding with the bottom of your desk and doubtlessly scraping skin, hard enough to bruise.

He laughs the same way a disaster siren would. Of course he does, the bitch. Everything from a mild inconvenience to genuine, life-threatening pain is simply entertainment to him.

Perhaps something uncontrolled shows on your face or your body language, because instead of disappearing from sight and hovering in order to cause havoc at unseen intervals, his existence glides closer in a nearly-smooth arc from the high ceiling down to your level. How generous of him.

“THIS IS NOT FILTH.” Caliborn’s nearness to your precious electronics gives you slight anxiety sweats. That or it’s just your body’s natural response to his hot countenance at this point. “I APPROVE.”

“You approve of anything I do so long as it isn’t what you identify as ‘filth.’” You click off of the school’s web page, telling yourself that you don’t have a chance at getting anything done with him being present. “What’s up, _verde._ Is Dave in the cookie jar again.”

“IF THAT IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE.” Caliborn seems to be ignoring your second sentence entirely, leading you to believe that Dave is indeed in the cookie jar. He’s gonna ruin his dinner. “THEN I HAVE. A REQUEST.”

You pop your mouth semi-smugly as you take upon the arduous task of opening your ancient pirated art program. It loads as slowly as possible. “Knew you’d come around at some point, big guy. So, what you looking for – I’ll give you a special discount.”

“BECAUSE I AM A SUPERIOR BEING.”

“Because I know you have no money. C’mon.” You delicately run your fingers across your tablet, as if this is a magic show and not a borderline coercion scenario.

Interlocking webs of heated lines run up and down your left arm. You imagine Dave’s necklace chain dragging across your skin after being heated in a fire.

“SOMETHING SALACIOUS.” Caliborn’s bodyless voice cants from side to side behind your head. Surround sound features. “PERHAPS NOT EVEN YOU. FILTHY LITTLE BOY. CAN ACHIEVE WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR.”

You epicly force yourself not to laugh right at him. “Well this filthy little boy will try his best, sir. But you need to tell me what to do first.”

It feels almost as if Caliborn presses himself up against your upper back and head for a moment, but you know that if he truly did that, you’d be dead. It exists as a pressure, one that you do not enjoy but can seem to do fuckall about.

“I WANT YOU.” Sweat rolls down underneath your shirt. “TO DRAW.” Your computer fans make a concerning noise. “EXPLICIT.” You genuinely cannot tell if he’s dragging it out on purpose or because he’s seriously embarrassed. “HAND-HOLDING.”

You can’t help it – you’re at least mildly disappointed in what you consider to be a misuse of your true skill. “Fine,” you mumble. Goddamn, to think this dangerous supernatural entity is vanilla as fuck is irony at its best.

You draw two people holding hands. One of them shorter, and stockier, the other tall and thin by comparison. If they have lightbright green and neon orange eyes respectively, Caliborn won’t understand the significance.

Caliborn requests drawings along a similar vein for over two hours. Hand-holding, hugging, a date night setting with candles and moonlight and everything, marriage ceremonies, literally looking at listings for houses and touring said open houses, adopting pets and kids and such. Dumb, wholehearted shit. You sit there and basically pen out this entire, if disjointed and sloppily done, friends-to-lovers-to-parents comic starring your RPF OCs for the superheated dick that refuses to move any further than a few feet from you, making this all an uncomfortably sweaty venture.

“SAVE IT. **SAVE IT.”** Caliborn insists you keep every single scribble you do, including the utterly incomprehensible ones that look like several circles representing a larger picture that will never be completed. You corral them all into a folder that you name ‘Li’l Cal’s Big Sexy Adventure.’ He smacks you on the back of the head with one of the CPUs you have lying around.

The _gap moe_ is real, and your egregious stalling attempt has hit peak idiocy.

“Alright. I think we’ve done enough fuckery for today.” You close out of the art program before Caliborn can demand more PG unpaid commissions, and massage your hand. “I’ve put off a phone call all week. Need to get it done. It’s for the health and safety of Dave.” So don’t even think about fucking it up, is what you don’t say.

Unsurprisingly, the poltergeist hovers like a hanged body over your shoulder, peering at your screen as you reluctantly flip back to the Elementary School’s page and highlight the toll-free number, slipping your headset on and instructing your console to begin the call.

The several rings in your ears dies within the heat, a feeling not unlike what you would imagine trying to slowly shove heated clay down into your lungs would be like. Before your eyes, your computer overheats, and bluescreens, prematurely ending the call right as someone’s voice greets you with a pleasant, _“Hello -”_

You yank off your headset and stand up, your computer chair rolling across the floor and hitting the other wall with the force of it. “What’s your problem,” you demand of the tainted air, diffused with green and red eyes. “I literally spent hours with you. Aren’t you satisfied. Aren’t you all tuckered out.”

“YOU DO NOT SEND HIM AWAY.” Caliborn oozes around you unsmoothly, seeming to leave bits and pieces of himself behind until he is more of a disjointed cloud than anything once resembling humanity. “YOU DO NOT GIVE HIM AWAY.”

“What.” You attempt to stay calm, but while sweat pierces into your eyes you can’t help but close them. What projected weakness you display. “It’s school. Kids go to school. Did you not know that.”

“WE CAN TEACH HIM. EVERYTHING. RIGHT HERE.”

“That sounds lovely, believe me. Believe goddamn me.” You stop attempting to follow his rapidly dissipating form with your eyes, and simply stand there in his heat like a housefly staring into an electrified rod. “But no. He’s going. I can’t teach him to read and write and socialize anymore than I can teach him how to snowboard.”

Something of his touches the side of your neck, and it feels like a heated rash blooms there, irritating more than just skin. “SO. YOU ARE ADMITTING YOURSELF INCAPABLE. OF CARING?”

“No.” You accidentally flinch away from him when his eyes abruptly appear, in tact, within your peripherals. Goddammit, keep it together. “Don’t twist my words. I am only admitting that I am not the best teacher for a kindergartner.”

“I WILL TWIST ANY PART OF YOU. AS I PLEASE.”

You involuntarily swallow in preparation for a literal twisting of limbs that never seems to come. “You won’t,” you say, with all the confidence of someone ice-skating for the first time.

“DO NOT PLAY BETTING GAMES WITH ME. DIRK STRIDER.” The slamming open of your bedroom door momentarily distracts you from the sudden searing pain of your right hip. You are cowed from pain, holding on to your flesh for all it appears currently unburned, though previously scarred. You grit your teeth. “THE ODDS ARE NEVER IN ANYONE’S FAVOR. EXCEPT MINE. AND LEAST OF ALL. YOURS.”

“I’m not betting dick nor shit,” you insist between ground teeth, “If I’m gone, you get no supply of energy from me. Whether ‘gone’ refers to death or simply moving the fuck out is one in the same, I reckon.”

Caliborn is silent.

You allow yourself a triumphant smirk that will surely be regretted as soon as it’s shown. “So my theory was right – you do need us here in order to become more powerful.”

He rounds on you, for all he is nothing but blistering green smoke with eyes. “SHUT. IT. YOU KNOW NOTHING. PATHETIC LITTLE WRIGGLING WORM. COME TO MY TERRORTORY FOR SHELTER. FROM YOUR SAD LIFE. AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?”

If he has hot breath to waft into your own nostrils, it is the very air around you. His eyes are a horrifying visage to be faced with, but you are unable to fully look away from the nightmare. You are no so much standing your ground as you are frozen still in horror.

“GIVE ME THE WARD.”

You snap out of this enrapturing staring contest with spots in your vision. “What? Don’t call him that. He’s Dave. And no, I’m not giving him to anybody. Especially not you.” _He’s mine,_ you claim in every medium but verbal. _He’s mine._

“YOUR WARD. YOUR BODY. MY TERRORTORY.” It feels as if something slithers across your foot, but when you look down you see nothing. “ERGO – MY WARD. MY BODY.”

You suck in a fortifying breath of several hundred degrees. “No. A thousand times no. Sorry, sweet envious heart, but I didn’t stick around here, didn’t continue dealing with your constant slew of violent crybaby shit just to be somebody’s new plaything. Or victim. Or whore. Or housewife whore – whatever the hell it is you’re on.”

Being in this room is literally unbearable at this point. You attempt to not make it look like you’re retreating when you escape into the hallway for some slightly fresher air, but with the way your traitorous body stumbles its way there, you aren’t sure you achieve that affect very well.

“OH, DIRK.” The poltergeist follows you out, its coo like sour milk. “YOU HAVE NOT A SINGLE THOUGHT. IN THAT LITTLE BOY HEAD OF YOURS.”

Before you can retort with something along the lines of, “Keep calling me a little boy and I’m gonna start getting some ideas you won’t agree with,” your body becomes tilted to a dangerous degree, and you find yourself bent forward over the railing of the second floor stairs without express permission from your brain.

“SINCE YOU ENJOY JUMPING INTO BOILING POTS SO MUCH.” Caliborn sibilates directly down into your ear drum.

You aren’t sure how, but when he pushes you over, a move so telegraphed it’s a wonder you didn’t dodge it, you end up landing on the couch instead of flat on your back on the hard wooden floor.

Nevertheless, it takes the wind out of you, and your mind tries to play catch-up. Humans can only move and interpret so fast, you reason, staring dazedly up at the ceiling as green fills your vision, fills the room, along with the glow of something being set alight by supernatural means.

The couch is on fire and your hip scar burns, _burns_ brighter and hotter than you’ve ever hurt before, you can hardly mentally come to terms with it. But your body doesn’t care, fed from years of survival training – you wail like an animal, muscles cramping up and down your torso, making it impossible for you to do anything but bow upwards like a fucking possession taking place.

You lash out, kicking and punching and desperately grappling with nothing, there’s nothing to grab at, nothing to scream your agony into the face of. There is shapeless green observing your sacrificial suffering in an empty house, and such a thing gives you no comfort.

Just as your eyes begin to roll into the back of your head, entirely involuntary as everything else that makes up your cellular structure is begging you to keep them open, keep the enemy in sight, it all lets go the same way the world’s largest rubber band ball could suddenly snap and concave.

It’s the most comparatively astounding relief you think you’ve felt since… you don’t know. The echo of the pain refuses to reverberate. You might not have ever had a relief such as this, the payoff come so quickly and explosively. The other injuries, other pains of your life have always been a slow crawl to recovery.

Then again, you think as you pant on this smoldering sofa, body a livewire of mixed signals _safety-danger-safety-danger,_ you’re not sure you’d consider this a recovery. More like an instant bereftness of anything at all.

There’s a discomforting chuckle from somewhere in the slowly cooling room. “YOU AND YOUR MASS HYSTERIA.”

It takes you a few deep breaths before you can speak, and your voice comes out horribly exhausted when you do. “I am only one, solo hysteria.”

“INCORRECT. YOU COULD BE SO MUCH MORE.” You think you might see the vaguest of outlines of his face, though the only reference you have is the potential framing of the eyes and the slant of incomplete lips beneath it. “YOU ARE MORE. TO ME.”

His furnace mouth gapes wide, wider than any jaw has the right to unhinge, and in the form of uncomfortably hot smoke with the embodiment of the Evil Gaze he drifts through your body, dissipating.

The temperature in the house finally drops, but the couch is still smack dab in the middle of its final, burning hour. Its blackened husk crinkles beneath you as you sprawl, emotionally unencumbered for once because you simply have no other energy to spare beyond existing.

The sound of tiny boots pitter-pattering closer from outside, the shifting of gravel, makes you belatedly aware that, at the very least, Caliborn was courteous enough to do all that while Dave was outside of hearing and hurting range.

Dave opens the front door. Dave closes the front door. Dave re-opens the front door, but just a little.

“Hey,” you tell him, entirely inadequate once again in every numerous facet of your being, “So. Guess what.”

Dave does not ‘guess what.’ Presumably, he’s struck dumb, staring at you lounging on this couch, which is still somewhat on fire, and is very much a goner in terms of any future lounging.

“We get to go get a new couch.” Dave’s nostrils flare at the smell. “Right now.” You levy yourself up off of the lost cause furniture and brush debris from your person like it’s simply dust and not leftover assault. “You ready to go or do you need anything first.”

Dave does not need anything first, so you bundle him up into your truck without properly wiping down his muddy rainboots first. He’s quiet, and you don’t blame him. You cannot even begin trying to explain yourself, so all you do is dig around in the glovebox for the burn gel you keep stashed there, and traverse the driveway using your knees to steer as you rub some on to the various parts of your body.

“While we’re out, we need to go to the Elementary School,” you inform him, “to get you registered as a student.”

“Really?” Dave asks, slightly more animated now that you look less like a corpse in the making. “You’re gonna do that?”

Despite every part of you illogically weeping at the idea of walking into a school voluntarily, you say, “Yea. I’ll do that.” A pause as you hit the main road and turn left. “What color couch do you think we should get.”

“Red.”

You reach and rub a hand gently over his head, and think, quite justifiably violent, _G__od-for-fucking bid __if Da__d didn’t get __D__ave his immunizations._

* * *

It’s Dave’s first day of school. And no, you can’t come with him.

Yes, you asked.

_Yes,_ you asked again. If only to be sure, and all. Thankfully, the receptionist was kind to you and your new worries. You were told that open house touring for first graders would happen after summer break, but for now, Dave was lucky to be getting a spot so late in the year in the first place due to a small rash of people moving away, and taking their kindergarten aged kids with them.

The dawn is dewy and blue as you load an anxious Dave up into your white truck and drive him the full 20 minutes to the main road. With his crow-given ring hidden under shirt, he mumbles to you a bit about how he’s “got Sprite in my Pinkie Pie backpack, all up and cozy with my folder and notebook and new pencils and crayons, aw yeah, I’m gonna make so much amazin’ art the teachers won’t know what hit ‘em, they’ll be shittin’ themselves with the fear of art put in them...”

You lightly remind him not to cuss in school, but you’re preoccupied. You barely remember how public school works considering you’d gotten accepted into an online community college at age fourteen and never set foot in a school again, so you give Dave about ten one-dollar bills just in case.

“Kindergarten isn’t exactly the epitome of your future school experience,” you tell him as the both of you sit in the truck with the windows down, waiting for a lumbering yellow bus to come by and ferry your kid away. Dave is munching on a strawberry breakfast bar, even though you already fed him scrambled eggs and an apple. He’s probably nervously trying to put his energy into something distracting. “But if you have any trouble with the coursework… the kids, the teachers, whatever – I’ll beat it all into submission for you. All you have to do is point me.”

Dave nods and wipes some crumbs off of his face. They all fall somewhere into your truck but you don’t outwardly show disgust. Memories for later, you convince yourself, even though food rotting in a car is gross.

You have a hand-vacuum, but you had to hide it after Caliborn turned it on and stuck it to your head in your sleep.

You hear the bus long before you see it, as the main road at the end of your driveway curves heavily around the tall hill it hugs. The bus sounds like a wheezing, heavy metal dragon, and you can practically feel the palpable anxiety that surrounds Dave at the sound.

“Hey, Dave. One, two, or three.”

“What?”

You give him a little smile. “Pick one, two, or three.”

Dave sniffs allergy snot up his nose and looks over at you. His round shades practically eat up his face. “What for?”

“Trust me, little dude, you’ll find out later. It’s a surprise. One, two, or three.”

The bus is now visible around the curve, throwing lights and sound everywhere like some kind of cartoon beast.

Dave, visibly panicking, wheezes, “One!” And then grapples with the handle to the door as the bus slides to a loud, screeching halt, flipping out its STOP sign.

Dave’s forgotten to fully re-zip his bag after fishing out his breakfast bar from earlier, so you do it for him while he’s engaging in an intense battle with the door. He gets it open seconds before you consider also doing that for him, and then sprints off towards the bus with a red face before you can say any parting words.

Huh. Guess he was embarrassed. There’s already several kids on the bus who watch him hurriedly hop on as the new kid in between Spring Break and Summer Break.

God you hope he has a good time. You don’t know what you’ll do if he doesn’t.

You back the truck down the driveway; it’s an interesting challenge for yourself, driving backwards. Shut it off and lock it. Return inside the house. Stagnate in the living room. It’s a lot cleaner and more well-lit than when you first got here, you note with a detached sort of sense. Dave forgot his AJ bottle on the kitchen table, but you’re hoping that the vending machines at the primary school will have something to tide him over. Then again, you might be overestimating the public school’s ability to understand the innocent necessity of snacking.

You walk into the kitchen to put it back into the fridge. It’s slow going, almost as if you’re moving gently to avoid jostling a new injury.

It’s quiet. Not even Caliborn is haunting you in any visible way. You know now that he could simply be shadowing you, imperceptible to your human senses, but it doesn’t worry you right now.

You’re sitting at the kitchen table before you’ve gotten a true grip on yourself. Poke at the little Bionacle toy you’d found wedged behind the toilet in the bathroom a few days ago. After sanitation, it’s a pretty solid little contraption, and Dave likes it. It seems he picked his stuffed crow to smuggle into school instead of the much easier to conceal plastic toy.

As you make the little robot man walk a janky line on the table, you become aware of the tears on your face.

You’re crying. You don’t know why you’re crying, even though you do, actually, know why you’re crying. It’s an indescribable feeling of sadness and want that even your lexicon cannot grasp, no matter how long you dwell upon it, aching for words. If only a specific definition could logic it away, like bringing up a list of symptoms to a doctor with no diagnostic theory yet established.

You bury your face into your hands and quietly allow the waves of unbearable worry and helplessness to wash over you. You block yourself off, as if there were anybody around to witness this moment of true weakness. Caliborn’s seen you cry before, because he was the one to squirt truck oil directly up into your eyes that made you shed tears for a solid half-hour.

“Speak of the devil,” you mumble out in a horrifyingly unstable voice, sucking up snot and wiping a few tears from your dripping face before giving up. Caliborn slides up behind you.

His appendage – hand, possibly, should he contain himself to those dimensions today, which is never a guarantee – hovers in front of your neck before coming closer, closer, a dangerous degree of heat tracing up your chin, forcing your head to tilt up, up, further upwards lest you allow yourself to be burned in more places than only your branded right hip.

With your head bent back and neck tensed to a near painful degree, ghostly hand still holding your position with its searing heat, you look directly up into Caliborn’s terrifying, hellish eyes. It’s a fight and a half to keep from flinching directly into the fire.

“If you say ‘you look pretty when you cry’...” Your threat goes unfinished, and when you swallow down the tears, your adam’s apple comes obscenely close to being truly burned.

Caliborn flashes his golden teeth at you. Without further fanfare, he vanishes to the other side of the room.

You groan when you snap your head back down to look at what he’s doing, your neck muscles stiff in a painful way. He’s opening the fridge and dragging out one of the fish you caught from the lake the other day. He doesn’t bother to shut the fridge again, a cold waft of air colliding with his heat and making the air shimmer. You shiver.

His entire upper chest is visible, a green expanse of almost-human musculature. The poltergeist dangles the fish over his gaping mouth, a dark forked tongue lolling out much longer than your mind thought possible in its narrow experience.

A blinding light of a furnace hisses inside of his body cavity as he lowers the fish downward, red eyes pinning you to the table. The fish bubbles, then steams, a long _ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh_ of sound erupting as it’s cooked, disappearing nearly all of the way down Caliborn’s extended throat before he yanks it back out, crispy and a golden-blue.

Your shiver is an uncontrollable tremble now. You used to think you’d never truly be scared again, not after a childhood with Dad, or the aftermath of the accident with Hal, or that final strife on the roof where you’d nearly died.

But the Devil himself is in your kitchen, surrounded by the smell of cooked meat, eyes on you, the same eyes that watch you when you sleep, could watch your little brother sleep, and you realize that this is the time when you are truly well in over your head.

And then the Devil slaps a paper plate down in your vague direction and flops the fish onto it with a comical _splat!_ and the spell is utterly broken.

“EAT, YOU SAD SACK OF SHIT.”

Caliborn exits stage left. Or stage ‘wherever ghosts go when they dramatically disappear into thin air.’

You collapse back into your seat. Tears dry on your face. You’re damn near positive that if anybody were to touch you right now, you’d piss yourself. It’s not exactly a pleasant thought.

You gently flutter a hand up your hot reddened neck and laugh quietly, incredulously to yourself. It seems as if death still intends to court you.

And then you eat your favorite fish with your hands like an animal because Dave is at school and Caliborn is something so, so much worse than you could ever even try to be, and this is a thought you use to comfort yourself, whether it will continue to be the truth or not.

When you’re done with that, closing the fridge door finally and tossing the used plate away, you walk upstairs on frighteningly unsteady legs. You hesitate before ultimately deciding that, yes, you _can _sit on Dave’s bed, if only for a moment. You won’t touch anything besides the floor, the bed, and the air, and you won’t snoop. Dave will never have to know.

You use this quiet moment to call in the order to the bakery nearby. Dave chose ‘one’, so you’ll get him an apple pie. Two would have been strawberry cupcakes, and three would have been rainbow Dippin’ Dots. All three are Dave’s favorites, but you knew that if you’d asked him outright which one he’d want, he’d waffle until the very last minute, and then you’d have no answer at all.

You’ll pick the pie up right after you get Dave from school, since you’d promised to. He said he wanted to know what it was like to ride the bus, and decide for himself if he’d rather you drive him or he’d like to ride with all the other kids.

The sheer amount of anxiety pangs you get from thinking about whether or not Dave will like the surprise stalls you for a few moments, but when you hear Caliborn rattling something around downstairs, you boot yourself back up and jump down the railing to go prevent whatever damage he’s using as an excuse for attention.

If Caliborn doesn’t stop rapidly slamming the front door over and over again, you’re going to spontaneously contract rabies. You heard it’s a hot commodity these days.

* * *

“Can I have someone over for my birthday?”

You’ve bought dishes – cheap, plastic ones that won’t leave glass shards when shattered – between the time Dave started school and now, the winter. There’s a fire in the hearth you never have to stoke, because Caliborn keeps it lit. He’s using logic that you cannot fully understand; your theory is that it’s some sort of power move, or one of those incredibly small and unlethal tasks the poltergeist gives himself to keep you ‘happy.’ Keep you kept.

Dave is helping you wash those dishes now, as he asks his question while standing on the wooden stool you made for him out of all the excess firewood you’d chopped and then could not use within the supernatural fire that heats your home.

“Only one,” you ask him, instead of interrogating him over his past birthday experiences, or perhaps lackthereof. “Here.”

Dave takes the wet plate you’ve handed him and inexpertly begins drying it with that ugly yellow cloth you intend to shred some day. “There’s this kid named Karkat,” says the kid, “and nobody likes him.”

You don’t understand his reasoning. “And do you like him.”

He only shrugs. “I ‘unno. He’s kinda annoying, and…” A pause as he nearly overbalances while placing the plate onto the stack of dried ones. “And he hit me.”

“_What,” _you say, too intensely, hands clenching dangerously on the fork you scrub. You know this in the way Dave’s face blanks out, his movements becoming mechanical.

“With mud,” he clarifies. You force yourself to relax, highly aware of the pair of near-permanent eyes on the back of your head. You have a volatile audience in attendance.

“Then shouldn’t your logic be that you don’t want him anywhere near you on your big day.” The previously lukewarm soapy water becomes something closer to boiling. You try not to react suddenly, sliding your hands out of the sink and fetching yourself a towel.

Dave only shrugs again.

Okay. Cool.

“A’ight.” You help Dave down from his stool, throwing both of your damp towels somewhere random on the counter, leading him away and towards the couch. Yes, the couch is red. “I’m making the executive decision to leave the dishes for another day, ‘cuz it sounds like you’ve got a lot on your mind right now, homie.”

That cheers him up some. He goes directly for the remote the same way any kid who hasn’t watched TV in a few hours would, and you let it happen.

You try your best to get him engaged in things other than burying himself into television and Youtube, worried that he’ll become like you did – avoidant, self-absorbed in a perfect online image, superficial around friends. In your defense, it was a machine method you’d created as a young teen in order to come to terms with your awful living situation, alongside your arguably even worse personality, but you like to convince yourself that Dave won’t ever have to do that here. Won’t feel the need to fake who he is as armor.

And if that means you’ll have to work and engage ten times as hard as your dad ever did, despite it not being your natural disposition, then so be it.

“Wanna tell me about this Karkat fellow,” you prompt Dave as he flicks through the Children’s section on the streaming service Hal hacked the signal for. Hal is well on his way to becoming the ‘Rich Yet Distant Gift-Giving Uncle’, that’s for sure. “He ever hurt you more than some mud. Not that mud in your face isn’t terrible. It’s basically a crime if it gets in your hair.”

Dave smiles at that. He settles on a show called ‘Infinity Train.’ He’s watched it at least two times before. “Um… People like to call him Beep Beep Meow, ‘cuz of his name. And he drew- threw mud at me because I called him Beep Beep Meow, but he’s never done that to anybody else that’s called him...” He trails off, getting a little absorbed in his show.

You’re not bothered by this – you get what he means. You don’t know if this is what all kids do, but he seems to have a hard time focusing on just one thing. “And are you gonna call him names other than his own after this.”

He stills, looking down at the floor, as if he’s only now realized that he might get in trouble for calling another kid names at recess. “...No.”

You pet his hair back, ignoring the still strange texture. It’s so thin, like doll’s hair. “Can you imagine if people at school saw your eyes, and started calling you Red Eyes instead of your name. And how bad that would feel. I bet you’d start throwin’ some mud, too, kiddo.”

Again, he doesn’t turn his eyes up to you or his show. “But nobody can see my eyes. You got me shades.”

“You’re not in trouble.” You move his shades up and place them into his hair so that you can see his expression better, which is novel that he lets you casually move him and his affects around at all. His eyes, their red spilled over into white like splattered paint, are glassy. Uh oh. “I’m trying to understand why you want this kid to come over for your birthday. Do you want to apologize, or is it something else.”

Dave shrugs. His face scrunches up some, but he thankfully doesn’t cry, because if he did, you’d probably consider throwing yourself into the fireplace. “He doesn’t have any friends. And I don’t really, either.”

Oh.

Calculations swirl inside your mind, mostly dealing with your misstep regarding whether or not Dave understands what a conventional children’s birthday is supposed to entail, others dealing with why, exactly, Dave seems to want this Karkat kid around in a house with a scary ghost.

You begin to make note of a potential revenge streak Dave may get as he grows older, when kids can be substantially meaner, and worse things can happen to him than simply being hit with mud. If his first instinct is to tempt those kids into his literally haunted house as punishment, you’re gonna need to do some recon.

Making another executive decision as The Adult tonight, you switch positions on the couch, shuffling yourself and Dave around until you’re flat on your back and Dave is laid down on his belly on top of your chest. Again, he limply allows this to happen, showing no fear nor reluctance. It’s fascinating, what he’ll let you do to him.

But, you digress. “What do you know about Karkat, li’l dude. You’ve got a few weeks before the big five. Maybe you should get to know him before you spring an invite on him.”

Dave nods eagerly, toying with the rib-knit of your shirt. “He’s like me because he lives with his older brother too, and he’s new because he moved here after Winter Break last year, and his eyes are red but not as red as mine.”

That gets you inordinately interested. “You’re right, Dave,” you tell him with an excess of surety that you may later regret, “it sounds like you have a lot in common. I think you should try to be his friend. _After_ you’ve apologized for calling him names.” You pat at his bottom, once, a shadow of an actual reprimand, because if you ever truly raised your hand to him, you might as well sever your skull the rest of the way from your shitty body and finish Dad’s hack job.

Your li’l bro agrees, then turns his head to the side to finish his show.

* * *

“_STOP!!!”_ Screams a childish voice that is so, so much louder than you ever thought a kid could possibly be.

“Karkat!” Calls his older brother, Kankri, primly sitting at the wooden park table with an enormous book on religious theory in his hands, his eyes never straying from the words. “Play nice, don’t scream!”

Karkat, who is literally five and a half years old, turns around in the sandbox he’s currently plopped in with Dave, and flips his older brother off.

You have no idea what the fuck you’re supposed to be doing here.

It’s December third, Dave’s fifth birthday. Technically, it’s your twentieth as well, but you’ve never celebrated it, and you aren’t about to start. Hal will most likely be expecting a thoughtful present, the keys to your car, a pony, and also several more percentages of your soul than he already has, so you made sure to mail your entirely purposefully inadequate letter a week beforehand.

You convinced Dave to not bring any more people to your house than will ever be necessary, instead having his birthday at a local park. It’s cold as hell. You properly prepared your kid for winter, but neglected to prepare yourself – you, born and raised Texan, never experienced anything colder than perhaps the upper fifties.

Kankri is only in a sweater, albeit a very thick one, and seems utterly unaffected.

“Where did you say you lived before here again,” you question, trying not to let your teeth chatter. This is so uncool, it’s wrapped back around on itself and become ice cold.

He doesn’t look up, flipping a page. “Ontario.”

A family of two Filipino Canadians. Wonder how they ended up in Oregon. Wonder if it’s anything like your reasons for ending up in Oregon. “And anywhere before that.”

Kankri gives you this slow, almost an eye-roll of a look. “Ontario.”

“Right.” You glance over at Karkat and Dave again, who seem to be engaging in a staring contest. God you hope this isn’t some screenshot of a ‘five seconds before disaster’ video. “I’m from Texas.”

For that, you earn a tight smile, and a further fifteen minutes of being ignored by the only other twenty-something out here. Tubular.

You wish you’d brought your phone, despite knowing your very real paranoia of being tracked when using the device somewhere other than the safety of your location fuzzed house. Then again, you do not yet fathom how Kankri could possibly put something up in front of his face, and not want his kid within sight at all times.

The first stop of the birthday trip was the bakery Dave enjoys so much. They have a few indoor seats, should one desire to purchase a single-serve slice of something and eat it right then and there. The kids both picked what they’d wanted, and then awkwardly attempted to talk about things that only small children would find interest in.

It went… okay. You don’t know how to readily gauge the Okayness Levels of children’s birthday parties, but Karkat’s older brother Kankri never raised any sort of alarm bells to you other than the small oft-used one called the ‘BORING LOSER ALERT’, so unless the kids started trying to hurt each other, you mostly stayed out of it. You trusted Dave’s cues to guide you in your level of control here.

Now, however, the kids actually wanted to go to the park. In this weather. Are children immune to hot and cold weather? Surely not. If anything, shouldn’t they be more susceptible, with their tiny, ungrown bodies? You do not have enough information to truly decide this.

“_LALONDE__!!!!!!!”_ Karkat screams one more time, apparently displeased with something Dave has done. You’d find it hilarious that Karkat is allergic to calling Dave by his first name, but instead you’re simply worried. How in the world could two kids get along so inefficiently? What could they possibly strife about? Sharing? Toys? More mud?? “I’M TELLING!!!!”

Your first instinct is to get up and power-walk away, which you fight against with all of your being. You don’t think you like kids. You like your own kid, yes, but not other people’s kids. Or perhaps you’re thinking too small – other people in general.

Karkat stumble-runs his way from the sandbox over to the picnic table, thankfully going straight for his brother instead of at you, who has belatedly realized that you’ve lucked out on how naturally quiet and well-behaved Dave is for you.

Speaking of – Dave slowly trails after Karkat, his shaded face not giving away any details as to why his (friend?) guest is so ruffled.

“Kankri, Kankriiii!” Karkat whines as he tugs at his brother’s clothes. “Lalonde just did something -”

“What did I tell you about tattling, Karkat,” is all Kankri responds with, shutting his book with a sigh. “I think that’s enough for today. Thank you for inviting him, Dirk.”

You’re admittedly startled. “It was no problem,” you respond on auto-pilot, barely feeling Dave come to lean against your leg, where you place one hand onto his head. Good god, he’s like a little furnace. He is definitely sitting in your lap on the drive home, laws be damned. You’re a great part-time seat belt. “Thank you for coming. Bye, Karkat.”

Karkat gives you an utterly unamused face, making you realize that, up close, he has something of an under bite, teeth over-large in his jaw and spilling out to poke at light brown skin. He’s like a tiny attack dog. You wonder what, exactly, Dave sees in him, besides another kid who is new and lonely at school.

If Dave never invites him to anything ever again, you wouldn’t be surprised, nor torn up. His older brother leaves much to be wanted in terms of information-gathering. Normally, you’d enjoy a guy who knows when to shut up. Except when you want answers to satisfy your underwhelmed curiosity. Kankri could even be described as ‘pretty,’ but unfortunately you don’t prefer your men pretty.

When you look down to assess your charge, you immediately become aware of the tiny cut on his chin. “What happened there,” you ask. “He do somethin’ to you, did he.”

“No,” Dave instantaneously denies, “I did it on accident. It’s just a little cut,” and then he goes to wipe at it with his sand-covered hand, which you put a stop to by deflecting him at the wrist. He doesn’t even look offended, the trooper.

“Come on, I’ve got bandaids in the truck. You want a ride or do you wanna walk,” you offer, and he puts his hands in the air in a non-verbal cue. You pick him up and put him against your hip, which would be a lot more comfortable if you actually had any, but he’s so small and light you make do.

While you’re making sure you have everything, and Dave does as well, Kankri and Karkat walk away. You notice in those last seconds before they disappear over a hill that Karkat is tugging at his brother’s pant leg, looking back over his shoulder in a pronounced glare, possibly at the way you hold Dave aloft.

“I_ need_ to finish this assignment...” You can hear the tail-end of Kankri’s reprimand of Karkat, who tried to walk in front of his legs. Perhaps for attention. It makes you wonder if Karkat has any small scrapes or cuts.

Both you and Dave are quiet as you stand there to watch them go.

Maybe you are starting to understand your little brother. If only a small amount.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VS-oNF3neM)   
[[CLICK HERE for kyuuuuuuuun]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-zHSvDc1g)


	4. Shield Your Eyes, I'll Make It Lighter For You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Awkward and tense scenes, kids bullying kids, kids assaulting kids, mentions of past drug use (weed), smoking, past child abuse, sex-shaming insults, implied sex work, manipulation and abuse, discussions of child abandonment, discussions of parent death, discussions of abusive relationships, internalized ableism, mild child endangerment.

In the orange sunset of late September, you pick Dave up from school while crammed into a long, frenetic vehicle line of other parents, older siblings in highschool with driver’s licenses, and nannies.

Contrary to belief taught to you by the ultimate knowledge-based source of Modern Media, no fussy Ma or Pa comes ‘round trying to shove their PTA Posturing’s onto you like you’re fresh young meat at a Vampire Ball, which is a shaky plus in your book. ‘Shaky’ because no one here goes out of their way to tell the new guy the unspoken rules of where to park, when to idle, how to pick up said kid without inadvertently sending the school into lockdown for being a random man confusedly wandering towards the front office, et cetera.

Loathe are you to normally Keep Off The Grass when told, so to say, but if anything you do gets Dave in trouble or looked down upon in school, you won’t be able to forgive yourself.

When you were still enrolled, kids made rumors about how your dad was a drug dealer that pushed at your school regularly. Which you always found to be astoundingly false – Dad would never give away or sell his weed, and he was too smart to do anything harder. The one time he caught you smoking, too, he didn’t get mad because you were, but because you hadn’t come to him first to ask permission to see his vetted dealer. He set you up with his guy, and for the longest time, it was one of the only truces the either of you could peacefully keep.

Obviously, y’all don’t go to the same guy anymore.

So here you are, nervously bumbling around this school’s parking lot hive like a worker bee just born, being not-so-gently prodded along by the drones. You’re not the only shitty-looking truck out here, but also the last truck you passed had a raccoon calmly sitting in the bed like it was no big deal, so you like to think yourself at least one step above whoever that was.

Bored, yet not willing to become so distracted as to get out your phone, you wonder what car Kankri drives. If he drives one at all. Wonder if this town has a bus. You saw a bus stop sign somewhere, you’re sure, but you didn’t quite take note of whether or not it was a town bus or a school bus route. Wonder if you’ll spot Karkat’s fluffy little head bobbing amongst the sea of Elementary Schooler’s that are about to be released like a basket full of minnows.

You tap your fingers on the open sill of your window. Someone a few cars down is smoking out theirs. You don’t wrinkle your nose or shy away, but instead take a deeper breath, lacking the free will you held moments ago.

Dad used to smoke. Does smoke. Whatever.

Maybe you should roll up your window.

Just as you begin to lose all control of yourself and stage a self-made war over the options of To roll up the window? Or to not roll up the window? That is the question, Dave comes up to the passenger side and slaps his meaty little hand onto the metal the same way a fat bug hitting a windshield on the expressway would sound.

You don’t startle. You unlock his door and get him situated before peeling out of there just in case someone suddenly cares about how Dave shouldn’t be in the front, much less anywhere in this truck without a booster seat; he is most definitely not over four feet tall nor is he over eight years old.

Before you can painstakingly open your mouth and begin the awkward process of asking your kid how school was, Dave opens his and goes, “There’s this girl in class named Terezi and she has an older sister named Meulin who taught her how to draw cats so I said ‘hey can you draw me my fursona he’s orange and a cat’ and she did it.”

He wrestles with his bag in order to get this supposed fursona-bearing piece of paper out, and your mind is still playing catch-up somewhere back when the raccoon hitching a ride looked you in the eyes and gave Cal’s fear crawl a run for its money.

Dave hands you the paper insistently as you’re driving, and you take it for a lack of better things to say or do, despite a better thing to say probably being ‘Dave I’m driving I can’t look at this just yet, we could get hurt’ or a better thing to do probably being holding the picture in your lap until you get your precious cargo home safely.

Instead you feel the need to look at this fursona immediately, and also not question how First Grader’s even know a word like that. Time’s, they are-a changin’.

The, “This is amazing,” is out of you before you’ve even fully realized the majesty of what you’re viewing, which is a normal quadrupedal orange tabby cat with Dave’s round sunglasses taking up an uneven portion of the top right of the page. You can spot the juvenile attempts at proper anatomy – a child mimicking the lessons of an older sibling’s art style.

Dave looks pleased as punch, his pale face blushing like a fever and his mouth quirking up into the smallest of smiles. Score. “Karkat says- said that it was dumb tho’ so Terezi picked up the chalkboard eraser from the arts n’ crafts corner and smacked him upside th’ head with it and he couldn’t get all of the white dust out of his hair so he had to walk around like that all day and get on the bus like that. Terezi got in trouble but I told the teach what Karkat said so she only got into a little bit of trouble.”

You set the paper down all gentle and reverent into your lap. Dave didn’t draw it, so it’s not as important as the other art pieces hung up around his room and on the fridge, but he seems to really appreciate whoever this Terezi is, so you’ll treat it with respect for his sake. “Sounds like a really important day happened. Will I be seeing this Terezi around anytime soon or are y’all still hashing out the details of friendship.”

Dave wrings his hands, then begins tapping them rapidly on his knees. “I ‘unno. Maybe. Karkat said that if I go to her birthday party then I’m never allowed to talk to him again.” The tapping stops. “He got invited too though.”

You snort, unbidden. “I’ll talk to Kankri. You’ll both go.” A pause as you pull into the long driveway. “If you want to go. I won’t say anything if you don’t. It’s up to you.”

The air in the car gets awkward and Dave goes quiet. It makes you feel like you’ve done something bad, being so obsessive over how often you tell him that he has a choice, here, even though it feels so much like a lie. You wonder how you’ve yet to choke yourself with your own lead tongue, the one that always says the wrong thing instead of the right.

Dave allows you to help him find the perfect spot to hang up his new friend-art, but then after that it’s obvious that he wants you to leave. You retrieve his homework and place it on his wobbly, imperfect desk you made out of the wobbly, imperfect side table you accidentally knocked the leg clean off of one day last week when you were aggressively vacuuming in the wake of the single spider you’d spotted running across Dave’s bed the night before your Vacuum Reckoning.

Caliborn had laughed himself silly – told you about how Dave had gone off like a shot out the front door as soon as he heard the thump and your loud, instinctive “SHIT!” You felt like a monster. You gave Dave ice cream that night and apologized for screaming a bad word and for breaking his table, but you were unsure about what, pinpoint specifically, you had done to scare him like that. He had eaten the ice cream quietly and watched you play Pokemon on your 3DS.

Like a creep, you stand outside of Dave’s closed bedroom door until you can see his light turn on underneath the crack, to which you then sigh and pad your way into your own room, shutting yourself in.

Bracketed in at nearly all sides by tall pines and facing East, your bedroom with its window gets the darkest the fastest. However, you need no such simple thing as a lamp, for your personal nightmare lights your way with his green existence.

“OUR WARD FEELS MELANCHOLY.” The poltergeist is close enough to uncomfortably warm your entire left side as you boot up your computer. “BETTER GO GET THE TREATS. THE TOOTH-ROTTING SUGAR. THE CANDY, DIRK. WE CANNOT HAVE HIM AS ANYTHING. EXCEPT HAPPY. AND CONTENT. AND **SPOILED.”**

You’re contrite – being called out by a being of malice for not properly taking the time to personally, lovingly sift through your kids every need and nuance is not a pleasant activity. Sometimes a dude just wants to give his sad kid some sugar and not think too deeply about it. You make a non-verbal sound and flap your hands at your monitor like a harried receptionist saying ‘I need to take this call.’

Sometimes Caliborn gets pissy if you don’t talk back to him, but other times he seems to simply enjoy the sound of his own voice and requires no input from you beyond being most unfortunately conscious enough to hear him.

Tonight, Cal only makes a considering, human-adjacent noise at you and circles your head like a deep sea fish beckoning prey with its built-in headlight. You pay him less heed than truly smart as you hit gorgeous flow on a project you had previously been stuck in a rut with.

What feels like simultaneously several minutes and yet also several hours later, a tiny knock sounds at your door.

You unstick your eyes from your monitor and slowly begin to realize how stiff your body is, creaking and cracking. Before you can pitifully attempt to stand up, however, the door swings open on its own. Although that’s not entirely true - Caliborn shadows the space above the door, with this house’s slanted rooftop giving your room an unnaturally high ceiling.

To his credit, Dave only holds the sheets of stapled paper in his hands up, seeming to ignore Cal’s obvious, glowing presence above his head. “It’s vocabulary,” he tells you, and then, quieter, “please.”

You clear your throat and stumble back into the land of the functional, verbal guardians with the same grace of a man who has not put a single drop of water into his shitty, dry body for at least five hours now. “Sure. But I need a minute to detach from this project. Tie it up, save it. Stuff like that.” You give him a single nod. “Go on. I’ll be there soon.”

Dave obediently skedaddles back to his room, packet of work in tow, leaving your door open.

Unfortunately, a few minutes turns into nearly half-an-hour of poking and prodding at your project, still enraptured in that heady flow that is so hard to grasp, before you realize the time.

You trip on your way to Dave’s room, nervous roilings in your stomach and poison in your mind. You’ll have to apologize. You cannot believe you ignored him like that – you made no such promises, but you gave him your word. Only a few minutes, you said. You’d lied.

Without realizing it, you run the few short steps to Dave’s room, skidding to a stop in front of his open door.

As you do, a roving green light snuffs itself out from right behind Dave, who sits at his desk. He puts down his pencil and turns to you, seeming for all in the world unconcerned, once more, over a ghost’s presence near his fragile little body.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, unwilling to cross the threshold of his room. “I… got caught up. Was unaware of the time.”

Dave shrugs. “It’s okay. I know you’re busy. Caliborn helped me.”

What.

“Cal knows a lot of words,” is all Dave tells you next, before going about silently putting his surprisingly finished homework into his tiny pink pony bag.

You force yourself back into action, into the decisiveness Dave is supposed to count upon, and try not to let the pinpricks of anxiety overtake your rational mind. “I’ll make fish tonight. Okay?”

Dave says “okay” but he’s turned away from you, dragging out his Horseland play set you’d found at a thrift store, so it can’t be at more than a mumble. Good thing you pride yourself on your sensitive hearing.

You duitifully extract yourself from his line of sight, walking to the half-way point of the stairs before shakily sitting down upon one. _A bad spot to be, _the primal, beaten part of your brain whispers its old tune, but you ignore it in favor of breathing and thinking.

The pity session you’ve planned to selfishly partake in is almost immediately interrupted by a searingly hot hand brushing over your left cheek, causing you to flinch and hiss.

Caliborn’s eyes, existing in a state of emotion you have never and most likely will never be able to accurately identify, float directly above the crown of your head, forcing you to crane your neck back in order to keep him in your peripherals.

“GO DO YOUR WORK.” How untypically gentle of him to say, for something so typically violent. “HE’S LOST HIS PENCIL CASE.”

“Lost it,” you question, about ready to go back upstairs to Dave’s room, anxiety be damned, “are we sure somebody didn’t take it from him.” You’re not going to say it out loud, but you already predict an ‘easily bullied’ trajectory for Dave.

The spook snorts neon. “YES. HE DROPPED IT. AT RECESS. IT WAS SHAPED LIKE A FUZZY. LITTLE. PONY, DIRK. OF COURSE HE WAS GOING TO PLAY WITH IT.” And then, “HE WOULD NOT LIE TO ME.” As if Dave is fully capable of lying to you, but not to him. How odd.

You quail slightly. Mulishly, “Yea, well, he liked it, din’ he?” You heave yourself to your feet and carefully traverse the stairs to the first floor, knowing deeply that a push from behind could come at any moment. You swipe your thumbs under your eyes, massaging them.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Demands Caliborn, who dogs your steps in the way he sends small, licking tongues of invisible flame at your bare heels. You dance away from each one for him. “YOU DO NOT MAKE MONEY. FROM THE KITCHEN. BOY-WHORE.”

“’Boy-whore’, that’s a new one,” you snort, getting out a pan for frying with. “And Dave doesn’t need the pencil case right this second, does he. He has maybe three pencils, max. I got it for him because he liked it, not because he necessarily needed it.” You slap the fish onto the heated and oiled pan.

As you consider the merits of how uncharacteristically and freely talkative Dave was with you on the drive home – is he becoming more comfortable around you? Or was he simply too nervous to tell you that he’d lost something you’d bought for him and thus ran his mouth? – Cal makes a disturbing, growling noise from directly next to your shoulder, and stretches a half-formed arm of green forward like the arching neck of an attacking dog.

His clawed visage of a hand presses down onto the fish, which erupts into deafening sizzling and popping noises as if it had been thrown into lava. You instinctively shield your face from the droplets of heated oil that erupt.

When the ghost pulls away, a seared fish with a light char on the outside sits in the pan the same way a dead thing is prone to do. Underneath, the gas stove’s open flame has been snuffed out, as if it could not withstand its tempered self in the supernatural wrath of Caliborn’s.

You make a disparaging noise in the back of your throat, hurriedly setting the fish aside. “Cool. Great. Awesome. Thanks.” You get out another fish and coax the stove’s flame back to spark.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE ONE I MADE?” Caliborn demands, sounding like a grumpy child. “IT IS FAST FOOD. WHICH YOU LOVE SO MUCH. I WAS VERY FAST.”

Jesus wept. “I can’t feed something to Dave when I don’t know if it’s fully cooked through all of the way or not. He could get sick.” You don’t tell him that you’re genuinely afraid his unexplained ghost particles could potentially affect Dave as well, because you don’t want to give him any ideas.

“THEN LET ME TRY AGAIN.” A green appendage, less like an arm and more like a smattering of hot, colored smog, appears once more. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE MORE INTELLIGENT. THAN TO WASTE FOOD.”

If you were anything like Jane, this is when you’d take your utensil and start rapping greedy grabbing knuckles, but you know that if you did that here, your spatula would melt. “I’m not wasting it – I’ll eat the one you made, but I need to make the one for Dave myself. If that’s al-fuckin’-right with you, Your Majesty.”

After a few moments of pure stillness, the green existence of the poltergeist fades from view. The general temperature of the room ticks down a few notches, leading you to the safe assurance that Caliborn has gone elsewhere, wherever ‘elsewhere’ even is for him.

As you fry the fish at a normal rate this time, you whip up some cheesy broccoli as well. Grabbing a bottle of AJ from the fridge, slopping it all onto a plate with sloped sides so as to act as a sort of dam against spillage, you hop your way back up the stairs to Dave’s room.

Unexpectedly, Caliborn’s voice sounds again from somewhere near, yet not so close that you can feel him. “I ENJOY THE PROPER REVERENCE. CALL ME MAJESTY. INDEFINITELY.”

You shoot back, “You know the rules, big guy: only if you’ve got dough, though,” without skipping a beat. As Caliborn fumes behind you, you knock on Dave’s door.

* * *

“This is for you,” says Dave as he hands you a piece of paper with a delicately red penned phone number on it.

You blink a few times before taking it. “From who,” you ask, setting down your hammer. Belatedly, you tack on a, “thanks.”

Dave takes a few steps back, bare feet in the grass, and looks out into the woods behind the house instead of at you. “’s from Karkat, from Kankri. Said to call him or smth’.” With that, he scampers off, green stains on his knees and dirt under his fingernails.

You take in the massive amounts of implications the torn piece of folded, lined paper could hold. It makes your hands seem bigger than you expected. That or maybe you’re just growing up, and didn’t realize it, considering most of your attention to ‘growing’ has been pointed at your own kid.

At that thought, you look up from your position standing in the open door of the mostly cleaned-out shed in the backyard, trying to find out where said kid has gone.

Unfortunately, at that same moment, Dave looks up, too, from where he’s rolling his favorite Bug Log over to take a peek.

The both of you awkwardly turn your heads away.

You stoop down and pick up your abandoned hammer, shoving the paper into your sweatpants pocket for later, although it has no such courtesy as to leave your mind alone.

Kankri and you have not met very often in between Dave’s somewhat disastrous fifth birthday and now, but when you do, it’s unremarkable.

You’ll ask him how he is. He’ll say he’s fine. He’ll ask you how you are. You’ll say that you’re fine. You’ll ask him how Karkat is doing. He’ll say fine. He’ll ask you how Dave is doing. You’ll say fine, and then add in the kitchen sink free of charge.

Sometimes you tell Kankri a few too many details that he is apparently ‘fine’ not knowing, but for some reason it’s a largely uncontrollable catharsis you get from talking to someone who isn’t a child, a ghost, or a brother via obfuscating snailmail. Your friends can’t know, for all you mail them sparingly these days anyway. It’s isolating. You’ve never so starkly come face-to-face with the reality of how much about your personality is a performance until you are no longer on a stage. Unfortunately for you, your whole life up until this point was spent on under impersonal lights and thick makeup.

Now you don’t know who you are, besides whatever Dave needs you to be.

Kankri rarely reciprocates. Occasionally, he gives advice, having raised Karkat from birth. As often as that advice is helpful, it equally as often is not, since Dave and Karkat are cut from such different cloth. One time he told you that Karkat had made special Valentines for Dave and Terezi and one other kid whose name you can’t remember, but then threw them away at the last minute. You didn’t know how to respond to that, so you said nothing, which most likely did not portray encouragement for Kankri adding to the conversation about kids in the future.

You are currently mid-construction on a warm Autumn Saturday. You thought Dave had been inside, playing old hacked Jumpstart games on your computer that Hal had sent over a few weeks ago, but apparently he’d gotten loose at some point. You blame Caliborn.

In the shed you previously ignored was indeed a lot of bugs that gave you the secret heebie-jeebies until you dragged the hose over and screwed on the high-powered nozzle you bought for this occasion especially. There was also a shelf made of splintery wood at an awkward height. You’d feared immediately that Dave would whack his head on it should he ever get in here, so you took a hammer to it and tore it down.

Now, the shed is relatively clean. Turns out y’all have a lawn mower. However, whoever had this house last had done some truly astounding landscaping, because the yard is blanketed with short clovers and a species of grass that naturally doesn’t grow very long, so you’ve never exactly felt the need to mow for Dave’s safety or anything. Snakes and the like can be easily spotted without any extra steps taken.

You plan on selling the lawn mower, but keeping the weed-eater just in case.

There’s several piles of junk littering the inside of the already small shed, and most of it, to your eye, is perfectly usable. Sans the goddamn spiders inevitably crawling all over them, of course.

You glance back at where you spied Dave last, for all he spied you as well. He is currently gathering as many colorful leaves as he can from the shallow beginning of the treeline and hauling them back towards the front of the house, collecting them in piles. As you watch further, he sits down next to his pile and begins to organize them by color and size.

_Huh,_ you think mildly. You plop down onto the grass to sift through the pile of wood and miscellaneous shed things. Your mind traces schematics and possibilities, discarding and cutting and editing until you hold the perfect idea a mere five minutes later.

_Huh, _you think once more, encumbered with feelings of hope and excitement. _I can do that._

For Dave’s sixth birthday, you will build him a wagon.

* * *

Despite absolutely abhorring phone calls, the curiosity spurns you to contact Kankri on Sunday morning, so early that even Dave isn’t awake yet.

You realize your thoughtless mistake when Kankri answers the call with a bleary, “Hello?”

“I’m sorry. I woke you up – I’ll call back later.”

“No, no,” he assures you, taking a deep breath and shuffling some things around, “I’ve pulled an all-nighter, anyways. I can stay up for a few more minutes. Dirk, isn’t it?”

You totally forgot to introduce yourself, too. He just answered what appeared to be a random number and you… _Ugh._ Fire. Hellfire. “...Yes. Dave gave me your number and said Karkat gave it to him...” You trail off uncertainly. You thump your head gently onto your window sill, of where you perch to get some fresh air. A crow observes you silently from a thick tree branch in the shadows. You raise an eyebrow at it, and guess to as if it has red eyes.

Kankri clears his throat. “Since we appear to be seeing so much of each other, I thought it would be proper to give you a way to contact me. And also to extend my services as a babysitter, should you be in need of one.”

“A babysitter,” you echo dumbly. “I don’t know. My job doesn’t exactly require me to leave the house.” You tactfully do not mention what work you engage in. You’ve seen the beautiful cross necklace he wears.

“Oh,” intones Kankri. He sounds slightly downtrodden, but you can’t figure out why before he’s speaking again. “I had wondered where you got the time to drop Dave off and pick him up every day.” He clears his throat again, and you ponder if he’s got allergies. “Well, that was all. I hope you have a good Sunday, Dirk.”

After a few seconds of awkward silence as neither of you rush to hang up the line, you go, “Wait. Let me… talk to Dave. About it. He might be okay with it. Seeing Karkat every Saturday, maybe -”

“I have an hourly rate,” Kankri hastily interrupts you with. More sounds of paper shuffling from his end. “Just so you know. But I’d love to- Karkat, would love to. Should you need the time to yourself, and such. Or to keep Dave busy – I have many activities over here that they can both engage in together. The street we live on is relatively safe to walk. We have a darling corner store with dairy-free sorbets and National Geographic magazines and the public library is but a fifteen minute walk away.”

You read his desperation and you try not to sigh audibly. You, too, are somewhat stripped for cash. But you’re not also going to college, nor do you pay rent, so you can imagine that you may be more financially sound than Kankri is right now, for all your ‘paycheques’ are uneven and spread far apart. “I understand. I’ll talk to Dave after he wakes up, then call you later. If that’s okay.”

“_Yes _that is_ very _okay,” he says in a rush. “Yes, that’s… Have a good Sunday, Dirk.” He hangs up quickly after that.

For breakfast, you make pancakes with cinnamon and apple slices. Dave hoovers it down, but keeps shooting you looks from behind his shades, like he knows you’ve sat him with you at the kitchen table for a reason.

“Dave,” you start with, if only to get his attention away from his beloved apple slices, “I called Karkat’s older brother. We talked about…” Stop. Re-formulate for clarity. “How would you like to go over to Karkat’s apartment on the weekends.”

His chewing slows. For such a small face that is normally blank, his expression now is more complicated than you know what to do with. “Why.”

“Because...” And then you stop again. You cannot tells this nearly six-year-old kid ‘because Kankri needs the money.’ Who knows who else he’d repeat that to. For all you trust him, he is still a kid with the social graces of a newborn lamb, stumbling around and bleating mocking jay's news. “Although I’m home basically all day, nearly every day, my work doesn’t allow me to have as much time for you as I think you need from me. Kankri has offered to babysit you so that I have one full day alone every week to work, majorly freeing up the rest of my week. For you.”

Dave pushes bits of syrup-soggy pancake around on his plate, saying nothing. His feet no longer kick jovially underneath the table. You feel the sting of remorse for doing this to him, making him feel anything other than happy and content, and you get a sense of deja-vu for it.

“The pros of this would be that you’d get to see Karkat without the constricting rules of school,” you gently argue, “and that you’d be able to get out of this house more often. Kankri lives in a neighborhood that’s easy to walk to and from places. The cons...” _Would be that you’d be away from me,_ is what you don’t say. You are not entirely convinced yet that this is a con for anyone but yourself. “The con is that you wouldn’t be able to be alone, since you’d be at someone else’s house and it would be worrying if you hid.”

Once again, Dave says nothing. He stands up, ferrying his plate from the table to the sink, where he clumsily drops it in without bothering to get his stool first. He walks past you, towards the stairs, where he stops and turns around. “What makes you think I don’t wanna be here?”

You, vaguely stunned, can only follow him obediently up when he makes a little beckoning motion at you, helpless as you are to this boy's wants.

“It’s… Lonely here. Isn’t it,” you stiltedly say, watching Dave as he stalls at the second-floor landing for you to sluggishly, confusedly catch up.

“But you’re here, and Cal’s here.” Dave hops up onto his bed, yet unmade, and pats the space next to himself. You sit carefully, as if you could set off mines with your weight in guilt alone. “I know you’re busy. That doesn’t bother me.”

“Oh.” Stupidly, you let him push you down so that you’re on your back with your legs sticking off the side of the bed, as if he has enough strength in his tiny hands to do such a thing should you not allow it.

Still in his pajamas, he climbs on top of your chest and plops himself down, head turned slightly to the side so that he can stare out of his window. You upset yourself with the idea that perhaps he’s listening to your heart like this, and get unduly embarrassed with how it must be beating off-kilter right now.

You limply lie back and think of the future.

Dave is quiet for all of five minutes, unwittingly trapping you in a heaven-like hell where everything is okay even though a storm batters the hatches of your mind, before he mercifully breaks the silence with a heavily muffled, “yeah okay.”

“Okay?” Trying to lift you head off the bed in order to fully look at him gives you a truly uncomfortable double-chin sensation, so you drop it back down and submit yourself to only being able to view some of him.

“I’ll go. Check out this whole ‘babysitting’ biz,” he tells you with a beleaguered sigh. You wonder if he got that from you. In a put-upon motion, Dave reaches down into his pajama pants pocket and pulls out a damp paper towel. In it are several apple slices, which he begins to crunch on without first moving his head at all. You have no idea when he snuck past you to put those in there, and you are incredibly impressed.

You hesitantly reach down, and begin petting his head. “Okay. I’ll call Kankri today, and we’ll set everything up.” You pause. “Thank you.”

“Lord knows Karkat gets- goes into fits when nobody wants to play with him after school,” says Dave, expressing some kind of sentiment you were not aware he was capable of making yet.

You try not to laugh at him, and fail. He looks offended that his previously still bed would jumble him around all over the place like that.

* * *

You downloaded every season of Sesame Street onto a USB, plugged it into the back of the living room TV, then let Dave watch whatever episode he wanted while you were secretly outside fixing up the wheels on Dave’s wagon.

When you come back in, Dave is still watching. You can’t say you’re surprised – Sesame Street is the shit. Even you got to watch it as a kid. For all Dad was a terrible guardian, he genuinely enjoyed puppet work. Probably would’ve married Jim Henson if he ever got the chance.

Paying little attention to what is on the screen, you change your shirt then wash the oil from your arms in the kitchen sink. Even with vigorous scrubbing and dish soap, some of your skin still stains a darker black in splotches from your fingers to your elbows, but you shrug it off. Not the first time it’s happened. It’ll fade.

However, when you go to relax on the couch next to Dave, he rears back with avid disgust on his face. “Bro that’s nasty, what _is_ that.”

Unwillingly, you feel cowed. “It’s just a stain,” you defend in the vicious wake of a child’s disapproval, “not dirty.” You demonstrate by rubbing your hands thoroughly onto your clean white tanktop, showing Dave that nothing comes off.

Dave, in response, makes an even bigger stinker face.

“Alright...” You retrieve your beloved citrusy hand cream from the completely normal and not hideous coffee table’s drawer, which essentially functions as your bedside table. “Would I do this if I wasn’t clean,” you ask Dave as you spread lotion onto your hands. “Would I really waste my good moisturizer like that. I promise I’m clean, li’l bro.”

Dave begrudgingly allows you the honor of sitting next to him on the couch, but he still seems dubious about it.

You resolve to watch whatever’s left of the episode that’s on before you’ll get up to go occupy yourself with something else. Probably laundry.

A little girl puppet with yellow skin and orange hair flaps her hands butterfly-soft and mumbles repetitive words on screen.

It’s Julia.

You don’t outwardly react, but inwardly, you begin making hack-dash plans to escape. Maybe you shouldn’t’ve included the episodes about Autism onto the USB, but then again, who are you to force your discomforts onto Dave? It shouldn’t matter that this episode makes you uncomfortable. It might help Dave learn something important. Maybe it will _be_ important to him, if not today, then someday later on.

Dave pulls his hand up into the air and points at the screen with one finger, where on it, a human cast member tries and fails to get Julia’s attention while she’s busy drawing a picture. “It’s you.”

You swallow the intrinsic shame. “Yea, it’s me,” you respond quietly, hoping that your displeasure does not transfer into Dave’s subconscious child mind like an imprinting leech. So recognizable are you as a series of commonly identified autistic traits shown in a felt fucking girl.

For all you don’t want Dave to grow up so self-ashamed that he paints himself in black-and-white falsehoods, stifling who he truly is, you know that the world was not so kind to you so as to let you escape such a fate yourself.

You can’t imagine what he sees in you – when you can’t help but stim, it isn’t gentle, it’s harsh, like you’re trying to throw the bones in your hand out of your skin. You rock back and forth only when you’re unaware. Allowing yourself to be pulled out of flow while working is a force against yourself to be reckoned with. You don’t want him to see you, because you know that the you who is real is not worth anything. Not worth a whole episode on children’s programming. Not worth the gentle kindness or the understanding.

You sit through the entire episode until the next one comes on. You stand up and go hide in your room like a coward seeking absolution of responsibility from the waiting ghost, who acts not so much as a comfort as he is a distraction made of golden teeth and openly barbed words.

* * *

Both Dave and Karkat do go to Terezi’s birthday party in late October, thanks to efforts made mostly by Kankri during his weekly babysitting session. However, the party is cut short due to Terezi’s mom, Rosa, getting a serious migraine.

Kankri seems utterly distraught over Rosa being in pain, but is shunted out of the house politely just like all other party-goers. It’s none of your business as to why he reacts like that.

You give the two a ride home. Kankri offers in return a few hours for the kids to play, considering their full-swing party experience was hacked in half. From the backseat, Karkat practically screams, “YES!!” over top of Dave’s quiet “sure.”

Their apartment building has a decent green space. It also has a pool, but it’s been closed for a while. Apparently nobody locks the gate to it, though, because Kankri is comfortable with popping it open and dragging out two pool chairs for the adults to sit on. He then ducks inside for a minute to retrieve some juice boxes.

Before he hands one to you, he expertly pokes the straw into the top without pausing.

He meets your gaze with rounded eyes. “Sorry. Force of habit. Would you rather have a different one?”

“No, it’s okay.” You take the juice box. It looks comically tiny in your hands, and you don’t know how to feel about that. “The chance of you drugging me in a public space is at an incredibly low percentage rate.”

He doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that. He props a large textbook onto his lap and opens to a page bookmarked with several sheets of loose paper and a mechanical pencil.

What you do next can only be described, in your opinion, as ‘keeping guard.’ It’s a populated area with a sidewalk and everything, so people are constantly coming and going in this mild fall weather. You don’t always hold back your staring when they appear to get too close to your kid(s?) for your personal comfort. Kankri, on the other hand, seems both utterly entrenched in his assignment and completely trusting that Karkat can handle himself, or will at the very least speak up loudly if he cannot handle himself.

Mostly, you are resigned to kid-watching. Dave, as you slowly begin to note, is acting strange. Moody. He trails after Karkat unenthusiastically. You know this is uncharacteristic of him like you know how he tried to eat sand during his last birthday, and that was why Karkat yelled and tattled. Dave usually comes up with a good 50/50 ratio of ideas to play, despite being such a contrast in personality to his closest friend. This afternoon, however, he seems sullen and unreachable.

Before you can truly grasp the presence of mind to perhaps do something like nudge Kankri for a second opinion, Dave walks right up to Karkat and pronounces, “Beep Beep Meow.”

Karkat, a nuclear warhead condensed down into a couple handfuls of child, reacts by reaching over and smacking Dave on the top of the head, face clear in its anger.

Almost instantaneously, like a mouse trap springing to life, Dave launches himself at Karkat and executes a sloppy elbow-jab to his friend’s delicate and unguarded throat. They both go down, Karkat gagging for air, Dave already beginning to rapidly punch him in the stomach with perfectly formed fists.

You do not hesitate to launch yourself up from your lounging chair and pry Dave away from Karkat. Kankri, looking wild-eye’d and spilling his papers everywhere in his haste, follows to where Karkat is sobbing into the grass, running his shaking hands over any injuries before embracing the boy.

In your arms, held up like a football, hangs Dave, who continues to be near-limp and completely quiet. He acts as if he hadn’t just done that, just assaulted someone who could easily be considered his best friend, all over a retaliatory and childish slap that could be argued he instigated in the first place.

You place him down onto his feet, making sure to turn him away from the slightly horrifying visage of Kankri blotting at Karkat’s increasingly wet face, and ask him, “Why did you do that, Dave.”

He only shrugs. You notice a fine tremor working its way through his body, and feel entirely out of your depth.

Lost in your stilted musings of indecisiveness, you are not aware of Kankri’s hand coming towards you until its already made contact with your shoulder. You flinch. He pulls away.

“Bring them inside,” he tells you instead of acknowledging anything else. He’s an even smaller man than you are, and he seems to have trouble hiking Karkat up into his arms to haul him upstairs. Dave walks on his own.

It’s your first time in Kankri’s apartment, which is an oversight on your part considering you’ve let Dave run pell-mell over here every week for nearly a month now. You have no time to pay attention to the décor, as Kankri authoritatively points you and Dave towards the couch, then disappears into what you can only assume is the bathroom with a still sniffling Karkat.

You stare at the floor and give yourself time to recuperate your sense of self, and what you are capable of doing for Dave, _to _Dave as his future self is being actively built before you, entirely uncaring of giving something so simple as a ‘break.’ Time does not stop for you.

Bracing yourself with the ambient noises of Kankri comforting a hurt child not but a room away, you slowly reach over and unhook Dave’s sunglasses, setting them upon his head. He looks at you with an uncannily smooth slide of his eyes, then entire head. There’s something glassy and foregone about his gaze that worries you so intensely, so deeply, that it’s not unlike drowning on dry land.

“I know stuff must be real complicated.” You shift so that you’re pressing your right thigh up against his entire left leg. “And this might sound funny coming from me but… What you just did was wrong. We don’t hit. We don’t fight… not anymore. Okay?”

Dave blinks once. You are unsure if you’re getting through to him, but once you start, you don’t think it wise to stop.

“I can’t say I know everything about what Dad tried to tell you, but whatever it was, it’s wrong here.” You pause and consider the weights of the words you are about to impart, and try not to feel more important than you are in reality. “We’re not in his world anymore, baby. We’re in whatever world we decide to build. And they one you just laid a brick into the foundation of is a bad world where you lose all your friends.”

Finally, Dave shows some signs of life. He rocks side-to-side restlessly, his pale eyebrows canting upwards into his hairline.

“I’m sorry you gotta hear it cold from me like that, but it’s the truth. You with me? You’re a sweet person, Dave – you’re strong enough not to kill bugs even though they’re icky and weird and you don’t understand them. I can’t imagine you wanting to fight somebody like that. So don’t. Be who you are, not who somebody else tried to make you.”

Dave makes a weak noise that cuts you off at the knees, then pile-drives you in the side with all of his weight. You instinctively hug him, if only to further persuade his body from descending towards the floor. “I’m not gonna claim to understand why you just did that without you even tellin’ me, and you might think I’m bein’ mean, but I’m gonna push you from here on out. Not physically – but to be better than what you were taught. A’ight?” You tap him on his nose, the one that looks nearly as softly flattened as yours, and he looks up at you with those same glassy, tearless eyes. “You gotta be better than him.” _You gotta be better than _me.

Dave mumbles a little, “yeah”, and you think about how that’s probably all you’ll get from him unless he actively decides to give you more.

Kankri cautiously steps out from the bathroom, making you realize that he likely heard most or all of your self-emboldened speech of catharsis. His expression is what you can only describe as one a pastor would make when receiving confessions – contradictorily open yet loftily judging. Then again, it could be the religious imagery surrounding him constantly; you can spot three crosses mounted on the walls from the couch alone.

Your unwitting host clears his throat and looks down on you two. “It was Karkat’s fault. He confessed to hitting first. You’re not in any trouble, Dave.”

Well, that’s a huge fucking lie if you’ve ever heard one. He’s probably nervous that his recently acquired income will walk out his door if not shown special treatment.

“No,” you say decisively, “we all heard Dave call Karkat a name I’ve told him not to say anymore. I wish Karkat hadn’t hit in response, but, well…” You think you accomplish the vague hand-wave communicating ‘kids do the darnest things’ well without actually stooping so low as to say it. You’re only human, after all.

Kankri nods shortly a few times too many, his face scrunching up in an expression you don’t know how to read. Either he’s relieved or pissed or… something in between. “Right. I… Dave, would you like to go see Karkat? He’s not badly hurt.” With a flick of his expressive dark brown eyes to your face, he also adds, “Perhaps you’d like to apologize…?”

You nudge Dave slightly to encourage him to make less like a barnacle. “You should tell him you’re sorry. And that you won’t ever do it again.”

Slowly, yet obligingly, Dave slinks past Kankri towards the bathroom. When he’s inside, you don’t think you imagine how you and Kankri hold your collective breath in order to stop and listen for any further violence. None comes. You both breathe out.

In an almost fussy-like manner, Kankri quickly retrieves a glass of water for you, but not for himself. You feel too awkward to take more than a sip, though, as he sits down next to you on the couch.

“Our father...” He stiltedly begins with, almost as if in a prayer, but you honestly wouldn’t know what to do if he started praying because you don’t recall any prayers. “He died when I was eighteen, and when Karkat was born. Our mother… Had her hands full. She still doesn’t know that we exist. So I took him.”

You lean forward onto your knees and thumb at your lip in thought. “Rosa. Terezi’s mom.” Well there goes the ‘it’s none of my business’ clause you had earlier today.

He nods with the slightest of self-deprecating smiles. “What’s a first-generation immigrant from Mexico supposed to do with two pinoy children from a past failed relationship? She adopts children – she doesn’t _make _them. Or so she’s told me when I first introduced myself.”

You put two-and-two together, and come to the conclusion that Rosa must be a woman who is transgender, and that their father was trans, too.

“That’s rough,” you say, like one entire tool, and then try to save it by adding, “thanks for sharing,” which you’re positive has all the effectiveness of tossing a glass of water onto a housefire.

“I shared because I wanted to tell you that I don’t have any knowledge on what you and Dave went through with your abusive relationship to your father,” he tells you all in one go, and you uncontrollably become sweaty and somewhat dizzy with the bluntness of it all. “But I want you to know that you have my sympathy in your ongoing struggles to live beyond your toxic childhood, and to teach Dave to live beyond his own abuse.”

While you’re too busy flapping your mouth uselessly open, Kankri reaches over and pats your knee absurdly gently. “Now please, take your little brother and get out of my house until Saturday.”

You suppose that’s a very effective way of both asserting his authority over his own little brother and also inviting you back to help pay his bills.

You retrieve Dave from the bathroom. You find him and Karkat both in opposite corners, facing the wall and not speaking.

“What are you two doing?” Asks Kankri from behind you, not quite tall enough to see over your shoulder, poking his head in between your elbow and ribcage without touching you. “Are you alright?”

“We put ourselves in time-out,” replies Karkat in a very serious voice.

You nearly snort but barely manage to hold it in. Kankri is much more regal about it all, managing to effectively herd both you and the kids back to the living room with only a few persuasive _tuts_ and arm waves.

Kankri generously wishes you both a goodbye and even sends Dave on the road with the same single piece of Swedish Fish that Karkat is allowed, giving the message that the adults aren’t mad at him. Whether or not it’s actually convincing, you shall see.

Driving home in a deathly silent truck, you feel a slice of loss still lingering, despite being reassured that you and your charge would be welcomed back soon. True anxiety of losing a backbone you hadn’t fully realized you were leaning upon.

Even with the little heart-to-heart about unfortunate childhoods, you and Kankri may not be friends, but instead are partners in an uphill battle. Or, at least, you consider it to be so. Plus, Dave likes Karkat… supposedly. And you will do anything to give Dave what he wants, even if you run the risk of having to watch him destroy it.

In the cool blue of the woods awash with the shadows cast by a setting sun on a horizon firmly hidden by a deep treeline, Dave plants himself on the roughly hewn bench you’d slap-dashed together with extra wood and refuses to go inside.

You’re unwilling to push him anymore for today. You intimately understand the siren’s call of violence to solve problems that cannot be easily explained, and you aren’t ready to confront it quite yet yourself. Sword of repent dissolved into specter particles, you still carry yet a kernel of guilt. You allow him to sit outside, but ask him to come in before it truly gets dark.

As soon as you cross the threshold, you brace yourself for the inevitable smothering from one resident poltergeist, who makes himself a nuisance when the house has been empty for longer than an hour or so.

“OUR WARD IS MELANCHOLY.” Caliborn echoes the conversation you had thrust upon you not that long ago, and you bury your head into your hands as you sink down onto the couch. “WHY IS HE NOT BEING SHOWERED. WITH SWEET PLATITUDES? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR NERVE, DIRK. SHALL I OVERSEE THIS TASK. IN YOUR STEAD? I CAN SHOW HIM MANY SUGARY THINGS.”

He makes one rotation of the room, voice a ghost in and of itself in the way it threads through solid material like water, his presence making all porous and giving. “POOR LITTLE BOY.” You feel his breath which does not exist on the side of your neck. “IN OVER HIS LITTLE HEAD. ASK ME FOR ASSISTANCE. ASK. **ASK.”**

“He already had a Swedish Fish,” you reply with a froggy voice.

“A WHAT?” Caliborn moves away from you, and if he had a face, it would be offended, or perhaps dumbfounded. “THAT’S DISGUSTING.”

“You don’t know what Swedish Fish are,” you state rather than ask. You make a mental note to look up when Swedish Fish were invented.

“SHUT UP!” Something you don’t turn around to look at from the kitchen breaks. In the sizzling might of a temper tantrum by a powerful poltergeist of unknown creation, you simultaneously fold in on yourself and yet also prepare to take up arms.

“If you must know – Dave attacked another kid.” You omit any specific names, not only because you suspect Caliborn can infer on his own from how often he may eavesdrop without his living housemate’s knowledge, but also because you think he might not care. “He essentially punished himself in remorse, but he cannot evade his own self-repentance. It is inescapable.”

Caliborn slides behind you. “HOW CAPABLE OF HIM.”

He seems to have not much more to say on the matter, which is just great, because Dave chooses that moment to come back inside.

You can instantly tell that he’s crying, finally. _Finally,_ you think, and wonder what that means, exactly. Maybe that you were afraid he wouldn’t show true remorse. Afraid that he would be more like Dad or like Hal than like you.

Without saying anything, you get up and embrace him. He blubbers messily into your sweatshirt, reminiscent of his first day here. He willingly detaches himself in order to wetly mumble upwards to you, “I don’t wanna hafta fight...”

“Then don’t.” Dave cries still. You decide to ask him one more time why he attacked Karkat like that.

“I don’t know...” He snuffles into his sleeve before you pull him back to your already ruined shirt instead. “I wanted him to look at me, I guess. I don’t know...”

You hold the back of his neck supportively. “Next time, you should simply ask Karkat to spend time with you. You can learn how to take turns in doing what each other wants – compromise. You don’t have to force him to get his attention, because he wants to give you attention already. He’s your friend.”

Dave seems to take a long time to understand that relationships don’t necessarily require periodic struggles of power and violence and subtle manipulation in order to make up for the lack of communication. You ache for him, being so young and already having to confront such adult topics like abuse, even amongst his friends. You ache for yourself, given the duty of raising him right yet constantly feeling as if you fall short, and will continue to fall short for evermore.

As soon as you get him into his room and at least somewhat ready for bed, he faceplants into his pillow and appears to fall asleep near instantaneously. You’re jealous.

You bonelessly slump your way to the bathroom, barely remembering to turn the light on. You leave the door open as if you can still hear Dave’s breathing from your position a wall away, and stare at yourself in the mirror.

It’s cracked. It’s been cracked for a while now – since you moved in, actually. Dave cannot physically get to the mirror, not being tall enough yet, and so you haven’t been hasty to replace it. Now, however, its hairline fractures have multiplied like small lies tend to. The kinds made to oneself, never spoken aloud.

If you stand at the right angle, there are several Dirks looking back at you. It’s unnerving. It’s familiar.

“YOU THINK SUCH DISSATISFIED. AND SELF-ENCUMBERED THOUGHTS.” Announces Caliborn from the location of ‘too close, too sudden.’ To your credit, you have no energy to be surprised. “THAT WOULD MEAN NOTHING TO ME. OR TO HIM. I CAN FEEL HIM. OUR WARD. CRAWLING ABOUT IN MY TERRORTORY LIKE A PITIFUL BUG.”

In one of the mirror shards forms the reflection of a cloud of green with nebulous eyes of red hatred vaguely centered in the miasma. “AND UP HERE, YOU COWER. SELF-OBSESSED.” A not-finger traces the forehead of one of your reflections. “I KNEW YOU WERE SELFISH. THIS IS NOT NEW TO ME.”

“Not news to myself, either.” You observe your own skin stretched over your hereditary facial structure of a man you despised and unwittingly think of Rosa’s expressive hospitality. She and Kankri share the same warm eyes, you inconveniently realize at this moment.

You shared eyes with your dad.

“I WILL TELL YOU THIS, DIRK.” Caliborn’s face, for all it is but a skull with a fraction of humanity to it, appears almost entirely recognizable as a person’s. It’s haunting, the way his jaw moves. “IF YOU WERE WITH ME. IN MY TIME OF LIVING. I WOULD MAKE YOU AN EVEN BETTER HITMAN.”

This time, you break the mirror yourself.

* * *

On Dave’s sixth birthday, you present to him the tiny red wagon you worked on all Autumn. You’ve briefly stolen Sprite and put it in the wagon itself, as if to showcase its usefulness in carting things around.

He goes a little wild with it, and is much more talkative and enthusiastic than you think he’s ever been with you. Starts putting everything and anything in the wagon, walking it a few steps, then going back for more or to rearrange what he already has. Sprite continues to be his main passenger. That alone reminds you to hurry up and reply to Hal’s previous letter.

Dave starts hinting about how great it would be if y’all could create a picnic and wheel it into the woods. Already forfeiting your control, you say, “Sure,” almost immediately, despite knowing that you’ll have to do most of the work considering how bumpy the woods will be for such a tiny wagon.

You go on a ‘hike’ together once it hits the warmest the day will get. All you really do is follow a mostly directed deer trail until you find a spot reasonably flat enough to lay down the old quilt you brought. You set the feast, which consists of whatever Dave could get his hot little pizza hands on and fit into the wagon.

It’s simple fun. For once, nothing in your life currently has any hidden meanings, or second faces, or ignored memories of worse times. You’re just out in the woods on your kid brother’s birthday having a picnic.

“Hey,” you say once you’re both back inside and you have a lot of extra pilfered food to put away and some dishes to wash. “Hal’s present, li’l dude. You forgot about Hal’s present.”

Newly excited, Dave practically launches himself at the wrapped gift that arrived perfectly on time the day before. Inside is a gaming laptop with a few games along with it, one of them being Skyrim.

He begs you to set it up as soon as possible without actually begging with words. It’s more like psychic waves you can feel constantly hammering the back of your head – that or it was Caliborn pelting you with the box of multi-colored eraser heads he somehow got into without melting the entire batch.

By the time the day is nearly over, Dave is playing a heavily modded version of Skyrim with no blood, weapons replaced with foam pirate ones or various comically enlarged food items, and rainbow sparkles for magic. All of the yelling and hitting noises have been turned into cartoonish splats and honks.

You are the best parent. It is you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjyb8WqIK1A)   
[[CLICK HERE for something neat]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite)


	5. An Experiment With Existence Is Showing Up Anomalies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Mentions of alcohol and alcohol abuse, minor injuries, abusive relationships, jokingly mentioned kink (praise), implied survival sex, implied underage prostitution, self-harm (purposefully provoking an abuser so that they hit, contorting one's body into unnaturally painful positions), food insecurity, implied past starvation, awkward sexual flirting, religious imagery, discussions of sexual relationships, internalized aphobia, detailed POV anxiety attack, internalized ableism, kids bullying neurodivergent adults, non-consensual photographing, kids cussing, implied physical attraction, mentioned sexually transmitted diseases (herpes), mild & temporary non-consensual possession, implied witchcraftery, mild child endangerment, implied/joking BDSM, past Kankri/Cronus, minor Sollux/Aradia.

Legally, you can drink now.

You’re not going to, though. Of course not – Dave’s health and safety matter more than any fermented crunk liquid. Unless someone slaps a bottle of something down in front of you out of the goodness of their hearts, you aren’t going out of your way to acquire it. You sincerely doubt Kankri drinks. You understand that Hal has always been on too many medications to risk it.

You’ve never drank alcohol before. You like to think it’s because you’re smart, but you know it’s because that field of self-destruction simply never appealed to you, and still doesn’t. Jake once promised to take you ‘properly drinking’ once you hit twenty-one, but obviously that’s never happened, because he’s not here. It was a vice you watched from afar as a teen-aged Rox let it take hold of them, but no more.

However, you think as you crouch down inside of Dave’s closet and reach one hand into the secret hole he’s dug through the drywall, you can certainly imagine your youngest brother one day turning to alcohol in order to further ignore and forget his traumas.

You pull out a granola bar. A bottle of water. You can feel more stashed inside.

Dave is at school; you were vacuuming his room. He keeps the floor of his closet mostly clean, so you vacuum that area as well in order to foil any bugs thinking they can hide there.

You were only cleaning, you justify to yourself. It’s not your fault the shoebox full of collected fall leaves he was apparently using to block his self-made hidey hole fell over.

You pull out another granola bar.

You were wondering how he ate those so fast.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Startling badly like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, you whip around with fists full of semi-crushed granola liable to start ripping through their wrappers should you grip any harder. You relax somewhat to prevent this.

“Accidentally snooping,” you admit easily, safe in your assumption that Caliborn may do worse to you if you blatantly lie than if you tell the unpleasant truth. “Dave’s been keeping food in his room. Hiding it. Went so far, he put a hole in the wall.”

Caliborn is silent for one whole moment, which is surprising enough that you’re able to take a calm gander at him. He’s like an oil painting, if one escaped its canvas confines and decided to freely roam wherever there was atmosphere. Green abstract, with an insidious splash of red.

“THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL.”

You weren’t expecting that. Not from him. You pretend to examine the food in your hands, now misshapen, as if you hadn’t bought the box of them just this week. “Oh?”

The force is so gentle, you hardly notice it at first. The bar tugs itself from your hand the same way a half-asleep kitten would, floating in the air the same way a half-asleep kitten would not. It heads directly back towards the closet, where it deposits itself into the hole in the wall once more.

“YOU DO NOT TAKE. HIS FOOD. FROM HIM.” Caliborn abruptly appears right in front of you as if he hadn’t just been across the room, close to the ceiling. You begin to sweat. For all you uncontrollably leak salt water from places other than your eyes these days, it feels different than when you used to sweat back in Texas. “FOOD. AND YOUR ACCESS TO IT. IS NOT A RIGHT. HE UNDERSTANDS THIS MORESO THAN YOU, IT IS CLEAR TO ME NOW.”

“Wasn’t goin’ t’ take it.” You casually sit back onto your hands, narrowly dodging the abandoned vacuum, which would’ve tripped you up and made this a lot less casual and a lot more humiliating. “And I beg to differ on the right to have food – it’s actually a legal, human right, believe it or not.”

Caliborn moves oddly in a way that brings him no closer nor farther away. You slowly realize that it’s a gesture, but one you can’t make out because he’s the equivalent of a cartoon dust cloud. Maybe he’s shaking his head?

“LITTLE BOY.”

He’s about to spin a yarn right here right now ain’t he.

“YOU RAN FROM YOUR HELL. TO MY SANCTUARY.” You try not to look like an impatient kid being lectured, because Cal takes offense to stuff like that. “AND YET IT APPEARS YOU NOT ONCE. WENT WITHOUT CERTAIN ‘HUMAN RIGHTS’ OF YOURS.”

The poltergeist moves above you. You obligingly crane your head back, not out of respect but out of that deep-seated instinct you still harbor that implores you to keep enemies in your line of sight.

“IN MY TIME. OR YOURS. I WONDER HOW YOU WOULD FARE ON THE STREETS.” His formed, clawed hand reaches down to graze at your cheek, like the thin spider’s thread of Buddha’s moralistic teachings unspooling in front of you, enticing you to grasp the purpose of this conversation quickly before he snaps and dooms you once more. “PRETTY. LITTLE. BOY.”

“Mm,” you hum noncommittally, thinking about the ice you’re going to go chew after this. “I understand perfectly, sir. Oh, but I have something to report, Your Majesty.”

“**YES?”** Caliborn practically barks in your face, and you honestly can’t tell if you’ve, like, pushed some kind of button that he claims he doesn’t have or what.

“I’ve to report that...” You bat your eyelashes like an idiot, “your praise kink is out of fuckin’ control and it’s gonna cost you extra if you want this scene to keep chuggin’.”

He nicks you on the cheek with his claw in one swipe, growling a thunder roll that vibrates your rib cage unpleasantly. You can practically hear the sizzle of your skin, feel the wet, hot cascade of superficial blood that pours down immediately afterwards. Once again, you’re not good enough to be cauterized.

You blink back up at him guilelessly. “Thanks.”

“DISGUSTING.” He sends himself to his supernatural room of which you don’t know the placement. If Hades himself had known his ‘Help Wanted’ sign would be answered by a fucking child, you’re sure he never would’ve put it up in the first place. And yet here Caliborn is.

You scoot the vacuum aside and lay back even further on your arms, not quite letting your back touch the floor. Coupled with the burn of your split cheek, the painful stretch it provides when holding yourself up in this uncomfortable position, theoretically, helps you think. Your body shakes.

So. Food insecurity.

You should’ve seen this coming, honestly. Prepared for symptoms you yourself never show. This only proves your horrific theory: Dave was raised different from you and Hal. You don’t know how differently, but it’s enough that your gap in trustworthy knowledge scares you.

Thousands- no, _millions_ of different options to pursue rattle around in your skull, making it impossible for you to grasp any specific one. You simply don’t know enough to decide – should you offer more food? Should you discuss his habits with him? Should you attempt to teach him that food belongs in the kitchen and nowhere else via discipline? You like that last one the least. It does not guarantee trust, only obedience.

Unwittingly, you think back to how Hal offered to tell you what he found in Dad’s other apartment when he went to get Dave. His open arms inviting you in, the arms you yourself built for him, the look in his eyes that told you he knew something you didn’t. When doesn’t he.

You can’t hold your position anymore and end up flat on your back, knees bent upwards, hands laid down next to your head with open palms. You submit to no-one; perfect like this, a butterfly waiting for the pins to come down, for someone to catch you in your elaborate denial-tinged lie.

When _doesn’t_ Hal know.

You think about getting up and then don’t.

Dad doesn’t matter anymore, you convince yourself as the minutes to when Dave needs to be picked up tick down.

He’s gonna know you messed with his stash. You damn near crushed one of his granola bars, and you didn’t bother to replace everything exactly as it was. Dave’s smart – he’ll notice. He’d have to be incredibly sneaky in order to get anything past Dad. A perfectly organized room in which its inhabitant would notice if anything was a single hair out of place is a witty tactic to adopt, you admit. The damn hole in the wall, a little less so.

It’s not like you’re mad at him – oh no, you’re mostly worried, an emotion tinged with being impressed. But you shouldn’t be impressed because Dave should never have to develop these kinds of survival skills in the first place. You shouldn’t have, either, but you consider yourself a lost cause. Dave isn’t. Dave will live beyond you.

You stand up, belatedly checking the floor for any blood. Nothing.

It’s time to go pick Dave up. You’ll decide how to mention it to him while you’re on your way there, because you know you’ll need to talk about it. He’ll see that his stuff was messed with, and if you say nothing, he’ll no doubt be on edge, waiting for you to retaliate. Just like Dad used to. You harshly slap a bandaid onto your face at that thought, then leap downstairs.

You pause at the front door as you’re putting your shoes on. You weigh the costs and benefits of calling for Cal, of asking him for advice before you do this. He was toting some kind of higher knowledge than you earlier, so perhaps he’d be amendable to sharing.

In the end, you don’t call for him.

In the end, you unlock your passenger-side door at the school and let Dave hop into a deathly silent truck, because you’re no closer to the answer of your conundrum than you were when you left the house, which is no surprise.

In the end, you get Dave home and you sit a no doubt nervous child down in the kitchen with hidden sight burning into the both of you. You look at him and wonder where his signs of stress are, what they used to be. Wonder where they leaked out to be perceived by eyes that you intimately know looked exactly like yours.

_His_ eyes had the chance to be warm, backed by their shared amber color. He had a million and one chances. But they never were. And now they never will have the chance to fail at being warm again.

“I found food in your room.” You can spot the line of Dave’s shoulders tense before going utterly slack, like he’s already given up. This feels too much like an interrogation – you feel too much like a monster. “You’re not in trouble. It’s okay that you have food in your room. The hole in the wall...” His nostrils flare on a nose that looks exactly like your own, and you uncomfortably scratch the back of your head, “is also fine. Those things can be fixed. Whatever you need matters more, you get me?”

Slowly, hesitantly, Dave nods.

“I just wanted to let you know that I accidentally disturbed your stash and that I’m not mad,” you say, “and that if you… Ever wanted to tell me why you feel like you need to hide food in your room, that I’d listen.”

Dave doesn’t nod this time. “Um…” He plays with his ring necklace. “Okay...”

You take an educated guess as to what he won’t tell you – Dad, after all, threatened to have you ‘sucking dicks for a living’ if you didn’t do this that or the other for him all the time, and as a young child you’d often believe him. It was scary. Funny, though, how he never realized you fucking for money wasn’t a problem to you once you hit a certain age and was convinced you could make your own choices freely with no consequences.

“But you don’t have to.” You slump back in your seat and realize that you’ll need to sand these down better – you can feel a splinter against the bare parts of your shoulder. That or it’s Caliborn poking you with one of your sewing needles. Either way, you don’t react. “You can keep a food stash in your room for as long as you want to - ‘til you’re eighteen or when you move out or forever. Don’t matter to me.” Except it does matter.

Dave shifts in his seat, a little more loose now. “When I move out? When does that happen?”

Oh. Uh. Fuck.

“Well, technically you can move out when you’re eighteen, which is when you’re legally an adult,” you carefully explain, “but you don’t have to. You can stay for longer, or even forever.”

He gives you that semi-blank look that makes you realize that you’re talking about numbers and concepts that a six-year-old most likely cannot grasp.

“But that’s over a decade away.” You stand from your chair and look at the time on your phone despite being avidly aware of every painful second of the conversation that just transpired. “Now, I’m gonna turn the living room into a laundry room ‘cuz it’s rainin’ outside and I need to dry these clothes before they get all moldy. You in?”

Dave is definitely in, although his part in the process is mostly delegated to jumping around on the couch excitedly jabbering on about the make-believe adventure he made his Horseland dolls go on the other day as you string up the room and start pinning damp, wrinkled clothes.

Cal helpfully lights the fireplace to have the drying process go faster, but it ends up making the house unbearably hot, so you and Dave escape outside. He avidly shows both you and a barely-present Cal his dead bug collection he’s storing away in a stump.

You try not to scream when one of them isn’t as dead as he thought and flies directly at your face.

* * *

Summertime means Dave’s home more often, sans the Saturdays where he essentially gets banished to Kankri’s apartment. Which, as you’ve been assured and reassured, is no such hardship for the either of them.

Dave takes baths often. This isn’t necessarily odd, it’s simply an observation – you, as a child, apparently had to be chased down in order to bathe, to which Dad would usually go ‘fuck it’ to, and not bathe you at all. This led to hygiene problems. People made fun of you at school for many a thing, and the state of your physical form was only one of them.

You have no such problem with Dave. If anything, he may take too many baths for a child who doesn’t always seem to need them. He’s not overly dirty, or sweaty. He’s overly clean, if anything.

You wonder why.

When you go to sit with him while he takes a bath on one of the first days of summer break, however, he stares at you. Stares you down, actually. You stop mid-sitting motion onto the closed toilet lid and stare back, caught in place by the sheer magnitude of disapproval being aimed at you.

“...Do you want me to leave?” You ask, first and foremost. You’ve been expecting this day, after all. Been expecting it since you first started, when Dave was practically still a toddler and didn’t know any better than you did.

Dave shuffles around, hands still clenched onto the fabric of his underwear. They’re lilac. You’re pretty sure he got them from the Girls’ section, but you either didn’t notice when he picked them out or you did and resolved not to say anything disparaging.

“’kinda have to get naked so… Yea.”

Well then. Looks like you’re being kicked out. You easily vacate the bathroom and then promptly have trouble taking anymore than a few steps away from the closed door.

There endeth the ‘sitting in the bathroom’ phase, here begineth the ‘occasionally checking in’ phase.

If only you were any good at the ‘occasionally’ part.

You check in perhaps one too many times, even going so far as to crack the door open whenever you do, because surely he doesn’t expect you to just knock and then be done with it. You need to visually confirm with your eyeballs that he’s okay.

No, you’re not over that one time when you thought he was drowning. You probably never will be.

You make half-cocked plans to teach him how to swim. They’re half-cocked because _you_ don’t know how to swim.

After the fifth check, Dave gets incredibly red in the face, and you force yourself to go back downstairs for the remainder of his bath, which is all of maybe five minutes. You assume you’ve ruined his bath – that or you took up far more of his bath time than you’d initially assumed.

Well it _seemed_ like a good idea, you justify to yourself as a somewhat skittish Dave sidles past you on the couch in order to escape outside.

From somewhere you’re not going to bother checking, a bone-shaking laugh sounds. Asshole.

* * *

“My tooth is wobbly,” Dave tells you one day while he’s munching on apple slices, sitting on the couch watching the same episode of Adventure Time for the second time today. He pokes at his bottom front tooth.

“Oh? Lemme see.” He obligingly opens his mouth to you, and you ignore how there’s half-chewed food in there. Sure enough, one of his teeth is wiggly to the touch. “It’s gonna fall out soon.”

You belatedly realize your mistake when Dave stares at you, horrified.

You damn near laugh, but then don’t at the last second. “No, it’s fine – this is normal. Your twenty baby teeth fall out, and then your thirty-two adult teeth grow in. It won’t hurt.” At least, you don’t remember it hurting.

Maybe you should’ve prepared for this better. It’s not your fault you forgot how freaky humans are, replacing their tiny teeth with bigger teeth that were apparently shoved up into their skull for later. You should get some kind of gum-numbing oral gel anyways. It does you well to be prepared.

Do kids need teething toys? No, wait, that’s for dogs. Godd_ammit,_ you thought you’d stopped comparing Dave to an animal a while ago. Or maybe it’s for infants, and you are in fact innocent. Mostly. Not at all.

“Ask Karkat if he’s lost any of his teeth yet,” you prompt him at a spark of genius. Karkat is, after all, a good half-year older than Dave. “He’ll tell you.”

Later, once his tooth really does fall out (happens in the middle of breakfast one morning, making him freak out and be late for the bus, causing you to derail your plans to fix the clogged bathroom sink in order to drive him) you don’t bother lying to him about a Tooth Fairy or anything, you just tell him that you’ll take his tooth.

Unfortunately, the previous plan you regarded as ‘genius’ backfires, and Dave already knows about the Tooth Fairy from Karkat. Namely, the money she supposedly gives. You compromise and tell him you’ll pay him two quarters, but if you figure he’s been knocking his teeth out on purpose, then you won’t give him any money at all. And also you’ll make him go to the dentist every day (this one is a lie. You can’t afford that.)

He loses two teeth in quick succession anyways. At the second tooth, you poke your head into his room after he’s done brushing his now gap-toothed smile and say, “Khajit has coin if you has _teeth.”_

It turns out a lot less funny than you thought it would, as Dave’s scared of the actual Khajit models in Skyrim. He’s reluctant to give you his tooth. You solve this by forking over a whole dollar in quarters to try and make him less freaked out. It works because he’s an easily distracted little shit who enjoys rewards.

You also sneakily mod his Skyrim so that all the Khajit are replaced with chibi-like cats instead, which totally makes them look like DeviantArt furries, but nobody has to know except you and him. And you’re under good authority that he’s friends with a Second Grade furry or two, going by the amount of fursona art he brings home.

Everybody wins in this scenario except your wallet for the next five or six years.

* * *

“Alcohol?” Kankri scoffs, “Hardly – when would I ever drink?” He hastily folds another t-shirt. You’d reach out to help him, but he’s literally smacked your hands away several times at this point and claimed he ‘has a system,’ so now you sit back and feel useless.

The boys are napping in Karkat’s room; you’d arrived just in time to be horribly waylaid and invited inside for a cup of hot cocoa. It’s an entirely mediocre cup. Kankri makes his hot cocoa with sugar-free packets and hot water instead of milk. You try not to repeatedly glance at the clock. It’s right next to an elaborate cross. You feel slightly violated whenever you look at the cross for too long.

You think he might be lonely. You think that you might understand the feeling.

“My ex-boyfriend, on the other hand,” says the dude who’s daintily dropped a gay-bomb and appears entirely unconcerned about it, a pair of tiny blue boxers in his hands, “he would drink just about every day, and I told him he was going to get into trouble like that, but did he listen to me?_ Noooo,_ no reason to listen to _Kankri.”_

You also think that you’re not so lonely that you’d willingly sit down with someone to chat about inane things that drag at your unfortunately conscious mind. You feel as if you’re half-asleep, floating on the edge of what lucid dreaming used to be like.

“Who was your ex?” You ask, if only to appear politely engaged. You’re not.

“His name was Cronus,” Kankri says, slapping down some kind of undershirt that is confusingly stained red and blue. Tie-dye? “We’d known each other since High School – well, earlier, technically, but we weren’t friends therefore I don’t consider it to be ‘knowing’ someone.” He turns to give you a little smile that holds a lot of significance and you kind of feel your throat close up. You do nothing in return. “He made grand gestures of how he was going to stick around forever, but then as soon as I took my celibacy vows, he was out the door before Karkat could even walk.”

You don’t know, exactly, what to say to that, at least not something that isn’t some variation of ‘what the fuck is a celibacy vow and why would you do that?’ “He sounds like an asshole.”

“Oh no, he was very sweet. To me, at least.” Kankri places a pile of clothes into his green hamper with the chunk missing out of its left handle, then turns back to you with his hands folded in his lap. “He was also an alcoholic with an abusive family. He often turned towards sex in order to find comfort and relief, and I understood that, but unfortunately when I couldn’t give him that anymore he left to go find someone who could.”

“...Still sounds like an asshole,” you say dubiously, not quite warmed up to the idea of a relationship where sex is refused. “You date anybody else since then?”

“No. Although my celibacy vows don’t extend to romantic or platonic relationships,” here, again, he gives you his little smile, and you wish not for the first time today that Dave would wake the hell up already, “but it’s hard to pay attention to any of that when I’ve got to take care of Karkat, you know?”

“I know.” You scrub a hand over your mouth, then abruptly cease. Reminds you too much of Dad. “I’ve dated one guy,” you allow, laconic. “We lasted six months. Never saw him again.” At Kankri’s blatantly concerned look, you add, “We keep in contact. We were childhood friends in a group of four – hard not to.”

He makes a face that conveys the sentiment of ‘yeah, that’ll do it’ very well. “Well, it’s not like we’re too old to try again. I’m only twenty-five since this September, and you’re…?”

“Twenty-one since last December,” you reluctantly admit.

“Good God.” Kankri seems to re-compose himself as if he hadn’t just said that. “You uh, you don’t look it. You look...”

You cant your shadows down the flat bridge of your nose and peer over them at him. “Older, huh. I get that a lot.” You replace your shades and suck on your teeth a bit. “Look a lot like my dad. He was a big dude.”

“I’m sorry for your loss…?” Kankri seems confused over your wording, and you let him be. Turn your head away and let him think what he wants to think. He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Like I said – it’s not too late. I’m sure some people- men, even, will like the way you look.”

“And I’m sure there’s plenty of dudes out there that’ll go for a tiny, nerdy guy who looks like he’ll one day end up in a huge lecture hall telling a hundred students what’s what.”

Kankri laughs at that, and it’s gratifying enough that the side of your mouth quirks upwards without your express permission.

“You look like you read a lot of books,” he says, almost out of nowhere, and you’re surprised enough that you simply blink over at him while you get read as fuck, “Know some good movies when the occasion arises. Perhaps you sew, or knit? Create things with your hands as a hobby?”

You think about the anime you studiously keep up with, and all of the subsequent fan-content you devour afterwards. Think about how the last book you picked up was what could only constitute as one – that massive stack of papers it took to get Dave enrolled in school.

Teen-aged you would be so appalled. Then again, teen-aged you wasn’t yet the equivalent of a young, single parent.

“I do sew. Do some woodworking,” you concede amidst intrusive thoughts about Jake’s love of big blockbuster movies mixed in with his more private interests in obscure, unloved media from other countries. Thoughts about all of Jake’s temporary places of staying that you had the audacity to infect yourself with, his thick books scattered about amongst the mess of more interesting things to poke at. Reportedly, he reads The Great Gatsby from cover to cover at least once a year, alongside several other classics you only considered when forced to during your stint in online college.

Belatedly, you get affronted on your own behalf. “You think I ‘look like I read.’”

Kankri adjusts himself in his seat with a complicated, half-surprised expression on, like he can’t decide if he’s also affronted by your affrontation. “Well, yes – more like a writer, perhaps, though I can’t imagine a great writer wouldn’t also be a great reader. Or an artist.”

Oh, boy.

“It might be in the way you dress,” Kankri continues.

“The way I dress?” You parrot back once more, stupid and too heavy on the inflection like some kind of amateur. “I wear the same thing every single day.”

He nods. “Yes.”

You presently speed-run an existential crisis over your rows and rows of identical tanktops and sweatpants. The only variance is, perhaps, the brand and color, although even that tends to skew dark and soft. Black. Charcoal. Navy. A daring maroon on days you can’t help but feel a little saucy. An even blacker black. One white tank you think Jane might’ve sent you once upon a time, after you’d selfishly rejected her other attempts at clothing you until she’d given up and just gotten you what you’d fuckin’ wanted in the first place.

“I dunno where this came from.” You gesture down to the red plaid flannel jacket you’re wearing. It was jammed into a cut into the wall upstairs near the bathroom that you swore you’d cleaned and patched up before. For a lack of better options, and also a literal lack of jackets in your clothing arsenal, you took it and wore it. “If that shatters my mysterious, brooding artist-_cum_-writer vibes, tell me now or forever hold your peace.”

You think you may have earned an actual, genuine smile from him for that.

Wherever the conversation was veering towards next is interrupted by two rowdy and definitely no longer napping kids tearing down the hall to bodily toss themselves onto the mess of pillows in front of the TV.

“Good morning you two,” Kankri chirps at them despite it being somewhere around six in the evening. “Karkat, say goodbye to Dave. His brother is here to pick him up.”

Karkat yells a long “Nooooooooo!” that is interrupted by his uneven gait as he bounces over to Kankri, flopping onto his knee. Dave follows along a little slower. “Can we watch a movie _please_ just _one _movie!!!”

Dave doesn’t throw himself at you and beg for just one more hour with his friend, but he does stand in front of you and quietly fold his hands behind his back, looking down at the floor.

You barely even have to see Kankri glance over at you significantly from the corner of your eye before you’re going, “Alright,” and Karkat’s resounding screech drowns out any sort of constraints Kankri lays down right after about ‘just _one_ movie, and then he has to go home.’

While Karkat practically sprints over to the small cabinet apparently full of movies to peruse, Dave stays behind in order to grace you with his little smile as he rocks back and forth on his toes, his shadeless eyes full of something. Something made out of the stuff of nightmares, you reckon.

Jesus fucking wept. You attempt to keep your composure and fail miserably, reaching over to run your fingers through his thin hair just to feel him lean into you. Christ. You hope he feels safe with you. You hope he knows you love him more than anybody on this entire planet.

“Go pick out a movie,” you tell him softly, and he’s still smiling when he walks away with a pip in his step.

You fold back into the couch and sigh out something cumbersome. Your moment of overwhelmed emotion is broken right down the middle when you realize Kankri saw all of that, and is giving you a very raised eyebrow with a complicated expression that you couldn’t possibly parse even if you had a hundred years to do so.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have the time to dissect you with his observations placed neatly into words that would surely sound like concepts entirely too large for one man’s small body, as Karkat runs back with an honest to god VCR tape with the box art and everything.

It’s Muppet Treasure Island. Holy shit.

Kankri brandishes it and dutifully inserts it into his actual vintage VCR player underneath the TV, which sits next to a DVD player of equally vintage quality.

It feels unreal, how much genuine fun you have for the rest of the night until the movie ends. Karkat occasionally talks over the movie. Dave, surprisingly, talks back.

* * *

Some kid near the back of the bus screams like a shot fox and lobs whatever across the seats. You reach up one hand and catch it. It’s a hacky-sack. You turn around and simply stare at them. Whoever it is sits down quietly, looking as pale as their face allows, eyes big.

You don’t know why you agreed to do this – chaperoning an Elementary School’s field trip to a pumpkin farm isn’t exactly your style.

Dave and Karkat are beside you, near the window. Their heads are bent together and they share one set of earphones, taking turns playing Pokemon Moon on your 3DS. You’ve since given up on preserving your save file. It might as well be Dave’s 3DS now.

Nevermind, you know why you did this; Kankri begged you to after telling you about how their field trip would be canceled if not enough parents volunteered to chaperon. He must think of you as some kind of shut-in with nothing to do besides your mysterious online job you still refuse to tell him about, because he worded it like the only thing stopping you from volunteering was your inability to work with other people or something.

You think maybe the school was banking on not enough people volunteering because they apparently dropped the ball and didn’t have enough buses on hand, nor did they properly schedule their visit to the pumpkin farm. Unfortunately for their frugal plans, the owners of the farm agreed to a last-minute field-trip, and have even offered to use their grill to make hotdogs and burgers for all of the kids. You quietly assume that whoever needs vegetarian or halal options have been forced to bring their own food.

It’d all be fascinating if you weren’t a twenty-one year old. Some of these kids must equate you with their highschool-aged siblings because they seem to think you’re going to sit there and take their shit. They’ll figure it out soon enough.

You’re nice to the quiet ones, though. You may not like any kid except your own (and Karkat, you guess, but you’re still waiting for the day Dave and him don’t hang out anymore) but you’re not an unnecessary asshole. You’re just… awkward, you guess.

One of the kids asked the bus driver to help them open their window because they wanted some air, and they got ignored. So you got up and opened it for them. You swear their eyes nearly popped out of their head, but when you turned to go back to your seat, they said ‘thank you.’

It doesn’t help that a lot of these kids poke at you like you’re a circus or a video to capture and get hits off of online instead of a person. You honestly can’t tell if your reactions are funny because you’re so obviously autistic or because you’re the only adult on this bus beyond the driver – the lines intersect disorientingly, and now you’re out of your depth with no friends of your own to help explain it or to shield you.

Twice you open a message to somebody _(anybody)_ on your phone, only to eventually turn it off and put it away. Paranoia eats at your insides. You’re hyper-aware of every movement behind you, of just one more kid throwing something at you or taking pictures of you or… but you can’t turn around because then you’re afraid the kids will start to copy you, think they can break the rules too, and then the bus driver will tell the teachers, and then the teachers will treat Dave badly, and then –

A little hand worms its way into your sweaty, clenched fist, and you nearly jerk in surprise. You weren’t aware of how harshly your breath is passing through your lungs to your nose until you’re brought back down, and so now you force it to slow.

Dave hands the 3DS over to Karkat, who is only absofuckinglutely ecstatic to take a turn, while his hand grasps yours. He doesn’t look away from the screen, but he also doesn’t let go, even when you think about lying, telling him that you’re alright, or think about how gross your wet hand must feel. How unpleasant a task this must be for him.

It’s humiliating. You, not what Dave is doing – what Dave is doing procures an emotional maturity that you’re proud of him for displaying, yet ashamed at yourself for needing. He’s only six. He shouldn’t have to do this for you.

You’re grateful. You hold his hand for the rest of the ride to the farm, a tortuously long thirty minutes. The next time a kid tries to toss an eraser at you, Karkat turns around and starts shouting bad words in phrases only he could be creative enough to come up with.

* * *

The pumpkin farm was okay, you guess. You do like orange.

The owners – a married couple getting on in the years – gave everybody a tour, then let the kids essentially run loose for a good hour or more. Fun for them, but stressful for you and the five other parents roped into this trip. One of them tried to talk to you. Needless to say, you ended that conversation as fast as possible.

There was a pumpkin patch where each kid picked out one to take home. Dave carried around a huge gourd until he realized how unrealistic it was before going back for a much smaller one, which you thought was adorable and took at least three videos of him doing.

Near the barn was a small corn field maze that Dave needed rescuing from, causing you to bull-head your way through and accidentally break some stalks in your haste. You apologized to the farmers, but they seemed happy that you’d cared enough to go get him instead of letting him cry. They told you horror stories about how other parents they’d had there would leave their kids lost inside, like it was a ‘learning experience.’

Hours later, finally back on the bus, you continue to be plagued by that disturbing factoid the farmers dropped upon your already stretched mind. You can and yet cannot fathom people who would simply stand by and let their kids cry, lost in a corn field. A very small, rudimentary maze it may be, but if you were Dave’s age and you were lost and crying for help, you’d want the help. You wouldn’t want someone who is supposed to love and protect you to simply yell from places unseen, “You can do it!” Or say nothing at all.

Dad would’ve done it, you realize. Dad would’ve let Dave cry. Dad probably _did_ let Dave cry, just as he let you and Hal cry until you learned not to cry about anything anymore.

Unexpectedly, when you get on last to take your seat, the bus driver stops you with a hand to your stomach. You skittishly suck in your gut and slink backwards, nearly falling down the steps. His hand was startlingly warm, and you weren’t prepared.

“Change o’ plans,” the man of a name you don’t know grumbles at you, “they told me to tell you that you pick a place for the kids to go eat before they get taken back to school. Anywhere.”

“What.” You scoot past his still-raised hand like it’s a riled viper and perch onto the first seat to the right of him. Dave and Karkat are already absorbed in their game, and none of the other kids pay any attention. “Why.”

The bus driver chews bright pink bubble gum. He’s got a well-groomed mustache, that’s for sure. “Somethin’ about the school having an issue and they need a bit to fix it.” At your blank look, he holds his big, calloused hands up and shakes his head. “Don’t ask me, I’m just the driver, I don’t know what’s going on. You jus’ gotta pick a place is all, kid.”

“Right.” You preemptively consider arguing that you’re not a kid a forgone endeavor, and instead move quickly to the other problem that presents itself. “I’m actually not all that familiar with this town. I’ve only been here a few years. I live on the outskirts. I hardly ever explore it.”

The bus driver reaches over and slaps a hand down onto your shoulder. A resounding shiver works its way through you body that serves to remind you that, oh, yes, that’s right: you’re attracted to men. Large men, typically with some amount of facial hair and worker’s hands and loud voices. Shit.

He doesn’t immediately let go.

_Shit shit shitshitshitshitshit-_

“Don’t worry,” he says, for all it sounds like it’s coming through a thick layer of jello to you, “I know someplace kids’ll like. It’s an ice cream shop.” He finally lets go and picks up his radio. “Don’t worry about the expenses – I’ll tell them where we’re going and they’ll call ahead and have everything paid for. ‘S the least they can do.”

“Yes. The least they can do,” you echo somewhat robotically. You feel as if something inside of you has been knocked out of place, and you’re scrambling to chase it down as it rolls haphazardly around on the floor. “...Thanks.”

The bus driver waves you off good-naturedly, finishes his radio transmission, then pops his hearing aid out with a cheeky grin your way.

You sink fully back into your seat gingerly as the bus gets rolling. You take it upon yourself to check on Dave and Karkat, only when you turn your head, you’re startled to find that they’re both already looking at you. _Significantly_ looking at you.

Dave openly glares at the unaware bus driver, his mouth pinching upwards into a pout.

Oh, my god. No.

“What,” you say too defensively. Karkat raises a thick eyebrow at you, perfectly modeling his older brother’s much more effectively judging gaze. “Quit it. Nothing happened...You kids know too much.”

And then they laugh at you.

This is basically the worst day ever.

* * *

You reluctantly use the public bathroom at the icecream shop because you sincerely cannot hold it any longer, and it looks like this trip is going to extend beyond the hours the school said it would because of this mysterious ‘problem’ preventing the kids from going back to the school, and then home.

This place is basically a Baskin Robbins except with a kitschy, small town name instead. A lot of the kids rattle off their orders like they’ve been here before. Dave gets a single scoop of strawberry while Karkat gets some kind of triple mint-chocolate monstrosity you doubt he’ll physically be able to finish despite hearing him boast to Dave about how he’ll _definitely_ eat it all.

The bus driver disappears. Wherever he is, he isn’t on his bus, and neither is he lurking around the shop. You’re simultaneously disappointed yet relieved – what did you think was going to happen? He’s old enough to be your dad, and he didn’t exactly show interest besides. You’re overreacting to some of the only human touch you’ve had in a while from a man you found vaguely attractive, that’s all.

It doesn’t help that your unofficial kids both peer at you suspiciously whenever you stand up to wander around the park-like area near the shop, abandoning the little picnic table to its sole two occupants. It gets so bad that you eventually plop yourself down and decide not to get back up until it’s time to leave. You cross your arms and narrow your eyes at them, making them look away as if they hadn’t just been stalking you with their judging child eyes.

Little fuckers are already tryin’ cockblock you, and you didn’t even _do_ nothin’. You predict choppy waters ahead in your future.

You sneakily begin to record them on your phone in retaliation, though it’s mostly because Kankri demanded cute evidence of the trip he has to miss. He works at a Youth Center that he’s basically sold his soul to because it pays for half of his college, as you belatedly found out.

“My dad had a golden tooth,” Karkat says loudly with a ring of foamy mint-colored milk around his mouth.

Dave stops eating his icecream (using a spoon, because you ain’t raising no heathen) with a contemplative look on his face. He turns slightly and says, factually yet paradoxically unknowingly, “My dad had herpes.”

You spit out the orange soda you were sipping on and end the video as fast as humanly possible so that you don’t record the strangled laughter you uncontrollably let out.

Dave and Karkat give you nearly identical weird little expressions of bare-faced confusion, which really doesn’t help your situation at all.

This catches the attention of some of the other kids, who flock over to sit at your table. Karkat takes to the new additions like a kid who knows his way around his entire classroom and has spoken to everybody at least once. Dave, on the other hand, seems quiet. Quieter, at least. His other little friend, Terezi, was put into a different group, so he’s got nobody else to fall back on, and Karkat is like one whole train chugging along with or without his shier half.

Well, he’s shit out of luck when it comes to how you can help him. You’ve barely said anything all day, and you sure as hell don’t know how to supply conversations topics to a six-year-old who’s socially anxious.

Good thing you don’t have to, you think in pre-horror as Dave opens his mouth, interrupting the kid avidly telling Karkat about his Hot Wheels collection in order to say, over-loud, “My brother has a boyfriend who’s a ghost!”

Only a few of the kids immediately identify you as the ‘brother’ and look at you, the others peering over at Dave with resounding ‘Huh?’s and ‘What?’s and ‘Nuh-uh!’s. He shrinks down in his seat behind Karkat, which is as effective as a very fat person hiding behind a very skinny pole, because now even Karkat is looking at him with an expression that does not mirror his peers’.

Several people begin to laugh, like in a nightmare. Then they all start talking at once. The only person who doesn’t laugh or shout disbelief is Karkat, who abandons his icecream in order to climb on top of the wooden picnic table with some effort.

You’re pretty sure he’s not allowed to do that. You’re pretty sure you’re supposed to do something about it. You don’t. All you can seem to do is gaze at your little brother, and all he can seem to do is curl in on himself and avoid you.

“SHUT UP!!!!” Karkat screeches, waving his arms around in order to have all eyes on him. “Shut up!! My friend Sollux has a ghost girlfriend! It’s not _that _weird!”

“Your imaginary friend from Miiiiidle school?” A kid says mockingly.

A little girl with an illogical amount of flowers inexpertly woven into her braids tugs on Karkat’s sleeve to ask, “Is his girlfriend a nice ghost?”

“Yes. She’s dead and she’s creepy about it,” Karkat responds with the reasoning only a child can possess.

“I want proof!” Demands the same one who mocked him. “And it can’t be a pic or a vid because those are never real.” Wow. That’s almost smart.

“He doesn’t owe you anything,” Dave says, finally stepping forward in defense of himself and his friend. “I believe him. And I really do list- live with a ghost because he, he tucked me in just the other night. He can make things float. And told me about bed bugs.”

What the fuck? You didn’t know Caliborn did… _that._ Dave must realize he’s said too much that he shouldn’t have today, because he avoids your eyes.

“What are bed bugs?” The flower girl asks, right as some totally random kid says, “My sister has bed bugs at her place. I’m not allowed to go over there anymore.”

“They live in your bed and eat you,” Dave says.

“Oh,” she says. “Rattlesnake once tried to eat me. I went to the hos-pi-tal.”

Everything is chaos. Somebody sneezes and snot dribbles from their nose and they try to get your attention by calling you ‘sir’ and ask if you have any tissues. You don’t. You slowly hand them a napkin, as if they’ll contaminate you.

“My mom gets the kinds with lotion in them so that it doesn’t hurt,” they tell you, and you nod your head like you understand, desperately hoping they’ll take their snot and their expectations away from you.

“ONLY DAVE AND HIS BROTHER GET TO MEET HER!!!” Karkat yells overtop of every single voice and sound in the near vicinity. Some kid at another table starts to lightly cry at the noise. “EVERYBODY ELSE _FUCK OFF!!”_

_I'm only one man, _you plead with no one.

When the bus driver magically reappears at a convenient moment, he helps you hustle all of the kids back onto the bus (with plenty of napkins). You practically beg him to take them back to the school so that you can just take your one, singular, perfectly well-behaved and not difficult kid and _go home._ He laughs in your face, but finally fucking obliges.

* * *

There’s no elegant way to ask an Elementary schooler to set up a meeting with you and his supposed Middle School friend who is dating a ghost girl. But you do it anyways.

It’s surprisingly easy to convince Kankri to let you take Karkat along with you and Dave into the woods for a ‘hike’, because Kankri is under the strange, remarkable impression that you’re a rational adult who hides very few things. This is a mistake he will learn not to make in the future, you suppose.

Then again, you think as you drag Dave’s little wagon all full of goodies being bumped around by the uneven terrain, you’re not exactly an evil being of the night here. You really are taking them on a hike that will surely end in a harmless picnic well before the sun ever thinks about going down. This hike just also happens to include some supernatural subterfuge.

The boys are scampering in front of you, chattering away about whatever it is they talk about. Neither of them seem overly concerned of the reason for this adventure. The only hiccup was when Karkat got massively upset because your ‘ghost boyfriend’ couldn’t come along. You tried to explain that Caliborn was bound to the house, one you couldn’t safely allow Karkat to come over to, but Karkat had a small crying fit anyways. He calmed down when Dave gave him some candy from his pockets – candy you certainly didn’t give Dave. You blame Caliborn.

Through the woods is a shortcut to the ‘basically also the woods’ park you’re intended to meet this Sollux at.

Sure enough, perched on top of a decrepit children’s slide of a faded yellow color is a young asian boy, older than your boys but younger than you. He’s wearing hideously chromatic eyeglasses that cannot possibly be easy to see through, but you’ll refrain from commenting considering the odd shape of your own. He’s still wearing the uniform polo-shirt from his Middle School.

“Hey KK, hey random people,” he greets you all with, jumping down from the slide and only stumbling a little. You bet he feels cool. “Th’o, I heard you have a ghoth’t boyfriend.”

Oh my god. Don’t mention the lisp, you beg yourself, don’t do it. “We’re not dating. He came with the house I bought, ‘n now I’m stuck with him.” You cant your head up at him in a nod. “I’m Dirk. This is my li’l bro, Dave.”

“Th’up.” You’ve never heard a real lisp before. You try not to be weird about it. “My girlfriend’th name i’th Aradia. But th’e’s only vith’ible to me, and alth’o at the plath’e th’e wa’th buried. But obviouth’ly I can’t take two little kid'th and th’ome random dude to a graveyard at night, th’o thi’th i’th what we’ve got to work with.”

“I understand.”

“Th’e died lath’t year,” he continues unprompted, standing there in a blasé manner with his hands shoved into his thin jacket pockets. “Alth’o, th’e can do thi’th.”

You brace yourself for whatever ‘this’ may be. For a long minute, nothing happens except Karkat giggling quietly to himself, like he knows what’ll happen and isn’t telling.

When you try to open your mouth to ask, “What is it,” all that comes out, completely beyond your mental control, is the word, _“Ribbit.”_

Karkat bursts into laughter, Dave soon following suit. Sollux smirks at you, and you quietly freak out, but not too much.

“Okay, th’top it, AA.” He walks over to Karkat and hands him a piece of candy. That kid’s rolling in sweets today. “Th’e can’t do much like thi’th, but th’e can make people th’ay ‘Ribbit’ if th’e trie'th. We think it ha’th th’omthing to do with how th’e uth’ed to be able to hear the voith’e’th of the dead when th’e wa’th alive.”

“This is a lot of interesting information. I’m unsure how to reciprocate. I don’t know all that much about Caliborn, only that he’s a poltergeist who is bound to the house he inhabits.” You park the wagon next to a nearby wooden table. You don’t miss how Sollux shoots it a hungry look, the kind only a perpetually peckish teenager can have. “You wanna stick around. I’ve brought enough for more than the both of them.”

“I can th’tay?” Sollux says this with a tone of voice that is said by a kid used to thoughtless rejections. He almost reminds you of how Hal used to be. “Thank’th. That th’ound'th… nith’e.”

Sollux eats a sandwich and a bag of vinegar chips you’d packed. He refuses a juice box and instead takes out a large water bottle from his beaten-looking backpack, swigging down several pills. “Migraine’th,” he claims.

Yea. Definitely a lot like Hal.

Sollux gamely agrees to play tag when Karkat and Dave wheedle him to, but then after that he gets a text and says that he has to go home because his older brother needs help taking a bath. You don’t ask, and you can’t tell if he’s grateful or if he wishes you would.

You take Karkat straight home after that, ignoring any whining you hear about how the sun isn’t even down yet, as if that’s a valid unit of measurement to anybody over the age of twelve.

That was fun, you guess, if only slightly informative. Dave and Karkat seemed like they also had fun, but you get the sense that they were overwhelmed with what you and Sollux were trying to discuss, going off of how quiet that had been. Usually, they tend to dominate any interaction they have with other people, your presence notwithstanding, but today they watched you and a literally haunted teenager talk back and forth like they were silently observing a game of tennis that they did not yet know the rules to.

You don’t mention meeting up with Sollux again to Karkat, content to let things settle on that front for a bit. At least until your source of information is no longer getting his first pimples. You are more than willing to meet this ‘Aradia’ in a graveyard at night if it means she has answers of the spectral persuasion, but not so willing that you’d endanger kids.

Once you and Dave are alone in the truck, you debate on whether or not you should ask Dave why he thought you and Caliborn were dating. But you figure that you’ve already answered that question yourself – what would any kid living with two adult figures think after having been exposed to media with romance and at least the semi-Nuclear Family model think?

You pull down your long gravel drive, Dave asleep in the passenger seat, and think _Oh well. _At least he now knows that that isn’t true.

* * *

For the first year since Dave arrived here, you will be taking him Trick-Or-Treating.

It’s not your choice – apparently, Kankri offhandedly invited Dave during one babysitting afternoon, and Karkat latched onto the idea like a limpet. Practically demanded that Dave be brought along on Halloween or else he’d never go ToTing again, not realizing how that would probably be more like a relief for his older brother than a punishment.

Dave is excited because he likes candy. That’s the extent of it, you’re pretty sure. It’s not about Karkat or about the experience, it’s about the candy. He’s going as a red M&M because it was the only costume you could think to sew on short notice, and like hell were you braving an actual store this close to Halloween night.

He’s fucking adorable. You put a little red hat on him and red blush and everything. Holy mother of god – you’re gonna make like it’s 2004 and get the pictures developed at the local drug store and put a miniature version in your wallet or something because you feel like you’re going crazy.

You’re currently sitting in the living room at three PM on a Sunday with a lap full of over-eager child who got dressed several hours ago despite knowing that y’all wouldn’t be leaving for Kankri’s house until four or later.

“You look picky,” Dave tells you semi-confidently as he hands you a small object. It’s an orange Airhead, something from a random bag of candy you’d grabbed at the store back when you were under the impression that this Halloween would be just like last year’s wherein nobody went anywhere. You take it and think that perhaps he meant to say ‘peaky’ or ‘peckish.’

“Thanks.” You toss the whole abomination of sugar and artificial flavoring into your mouth because you are, actually, pretty hungry. You simply haven’t found the time amidst the chaos to feed yourself. With astonishingly little forethought towards your dignity, you chew the tacky candy like a cow’s cud and make vaguely horse-related noises. The snorting and neighing and the like.

Dave giggles at you, and somewhere far off an angel’s choir tentatively sings a few notes at his smile. Now he’s hiding his face behind his hands. His inevitably sticky child hands.

You should think about bringing wet wipes, you muse, continuing to exaggeratedly chew your candy. You can’t imagine Dave not keeping his hot li’l hands off of any candy he’s been given for longer than a few moments.

To Dave’s pure excitement, it’s eventually four o’clock. He leaps off of your lap and races you to the truck.

As you’re walking out the door, however, you receive a super-heated and ungentle ‘pat’ on the back. You grunt at the sudden assault and don’t bother turning around, announcing to the air that, “We’ll be back, you big baby.”

“DON’T LET HIM EAT. WITHOUT CHECKING FIRST.”

You blink a few times and you don’t roll your eyes. “Will do.”

On the drive into town, Dave is near vibrating. He’s somehow already smudged the red circle of blush on his left cheek, but you don’t know how to fix it. Maybe he’ll smudge the other side and it’ll be the perfect accident.

“D’you think they’ll have candy apples?” Dave asks you, practically straining against his seatbelt to stick his head out the window like he can bloodhound-smell the candy already.

“Hopefully,” you say, omitting about how you have no fucking clue what people will and will not hand out. “If they don’t, we can make our own.”

That only gets him even more riled up. “I like that plan, let’s do that, let’s make our own, we can put sprinkles on it instead of peanuts.”

“You don’t like peanuts?”

Dave makes a stinker face.

“A’ight,” you say to mask the laugh you want to make instead, “If we get some with peanuts, I’ll pick ‘em all off for you. How’s about that?”

“Okay.” Dave looks around for a few more moments of quiet. “What do _you_ hope they’ll have?”

Your mouth opens before you’ve fully thought of an answer. All you know is that you can’t say ‘I’ve never been and I don’t plan to start because now I’ve missed out on my chance.’ “Dunno. Whatever you get, you can keep.” You think of Cal’s parting words. “Unless I find something wrong with it. If you wanna eat something before we get home, give it to me first so that I can look at it and make sure it isn’t… rotten. Deal?”

“Okay.”

Your arrival at Kankri’s apartment building is met with much fanfare – Karkat and Kankri are both already waiting outside. Dave hops out of the car and is the loudest you’ve ever heard him willingly be as he screams, “Oh my _godddd!”_ And sprints towards Karkat, who embraces him with open arms as they are _both_ now screaming.

You realize why when you slowly roll yourself out of the car: Karkat is also dressed up as a red M&M.

Kankri walks up with a stuffed backpack on one shoulder, giving you a wink. “You mentioned what you were going to make for Dave to wear last week, and I couldn’t help myself.” He nudges you in the ribs with his elbow. “Yours looks better. I just bought mine from an online warehouse with expedited shipping.”

Dave and Karkat jump up and down, their plastic pumpkins clacking together in their grips. Pieces of candy flop out of Dave’s pumpkin, and Karkat dives for them instinctively like a shark. Dave screams again, but lets it happen because those candies were for Karkat in the first place.

Kankri pats you on the shoulder, making you begin to feel a little too touched tonight. He’s acting overly friendly. Maybe it’s just the atmosphere that’s getting to him.

“Good luck,” he tells you, hefting his backpack onto his other shoulder. “My class only lasts an hour and forty-five minutes tonight, so I should be back by the time you’re done. If I’m not, then I’ll call Karkat first to let him know, and then I’ll text you if I need to.”

After bidding him a safe journey, he walks off to the bus stop. A few days ago, when the Halloween plan was revealed to you, you’d offered to make the kids wait a bit while you drove him to the college, but Kankri assured you that he’d be fine, and that he’d rather have the kids done with ToTing as soon as possible so that they can get back indoors early.

You can see his reasoning. Doesn’t mean it negates the feeling of inadequacy you’re plagued by as you watch him walk several blocks away to ride the bus, take a very long class, and then come home to an apartment with rowdy kid(s) waiting, all after a full day of working.

But it’s whatever. You take the kids ToTing, even though it feels more like the kids take _you_ ToTing with how they pull you in everywhich direction. Sometimes Dave seems to get overwhelmed with the choices he has to make, the people he has to briefly talk to, and the streets he has to walk down, but Karkat must be very emotionally empathetic, because he steps up every single time to help Dave decide.

He’s a neat kid, you concede. Once again, you think you understand your brother a little bit more.

It all goes without any remarkable bumps. That is, aside from that one house with the old lady who was handing out toothbrushes and apples. She’d looked at you, up and down, narrowed her eyes, then gave you a third apple and toothbrush. The toothbrush was orange.

You didn’t know what to do in response. You felt X-rayed as, like, a person, or a soul, and it was unsettling. You said, “Thank you,” and then shoved them into your pockets.

Dave got Karkat into the habit of letting you check his candy, too, before he eats it, so suddenly you were getting stopped every few minutes to stare at a piece of wrapped candy while a slavering child waited at your feet for you to give up on finding any evidence of tampering and inevitably drop it into their sugar-addicted mouths.

_Kids are scary,_ you think as you watch them shovel away various kinds of candies like they aren’t overloaded at all. Still, you can’t imagine someone actually trying to poison them, either. Can’t fathom it, this boogeyman that purportedly puts razor blades and rat poison in Halloween candy.

When you’ve nearly managed to herd them all of the way back to Karkat’s home without anymore delays, Karkat gets a call on his cell phone – a tiny thing that mimics a smart phone but doesn’t actually connect to the internet nor does it have the capability of texting or calling any numbers other than the ones programmed into it – and stops in the middle of the sidewalk in order to answer.

After he hangs up, he glances at you. His expression is one you’ve never seen before on his face, and thus don’t know how to parse. He leans over and whispers something into Dave’s ear, then steps away and looks at you again. Like you’re something scary, almost.

It’s not a nice feeling.

Dave comes up to you and sniffs snot from the chill. “Bro, Karkat says we can’t go back to his house when we’re done.”

He so rarely calls you that - ‘Bro’ - that you don’t know what to say other than, “I am instantly worried as to why.”

Karkat, for all he seems to be reluctant to speak to you, pipes up to say, “Kankri won’t be home. He says somebody egged Terezi’s house and he’s gonna go over and help them clean up.”

“Oh.” Well, hell. “That’s responsible of him.”

“Sure,” says Karkat.

“So...” says Dave, tugging at your pant leg. He’s trying to convey something wordlessly, and unfortunately, you think you know what.

You get out your phone. You indeed have a text from Kankri detailing basically the same situation, only yours says something about how he feels an intense sense of duty to help his mother as a son who blah blah blah blah.

You turn to Karkat. “Tit for tat; you wanna come meet our ghost.”

Karkat instantly agrees.

* * *

You clear your throat. You gesture back at the miasma of green that makes up your resident poltergeist. “Karkat, this is Caliborn.” You gesture forwards at the little boy standing gog-eyed in your living room. “Caliborn, this is Karkat, who has an older brother that loves him very much and would definitely have this house demolished if his beloved little brother went missing in it.”

Caliborn, in response, does what you can only describe as ‘taking a large gulp of air’, even though he has no lungs or mouth to do so with. “YOU ARE A DEEP BASIN OF ENERGY. KARKAT.”

You give him a falsely beatific expression. “Thanks for only being ninety percent creepy instead of one-hundred percent.”

“I ACCEPT YOUR GRATITUDE. AND SHALL EXPECT MORE OF IT. ALONG WITH FREQUENT VISITS FROM. DAVE’S GUEST.”

“Cool. Right. Kids, let’s go make mountains out of candyhills so that I can check everything and pick out my favorite bits to steal.”

And so Karkat meets Caliborn, thus opening a whole new complication of: Dave can now invite one entire friend over. And you can hardly ever muster up the chops to tell him ‘no.’

* * *

A few days before his birthday, apropos of nothing, Dave turns to you and says, “When I turn seven, the rest of my muscles will grow in, and then I’m gonna be able to lift you.”

Before you have the chance to say anything to that, Dave exemplifies this by walking over to you and wrapping his arms around your legs. As far as you can feel, his fingers don’t touch. With a grunt, he begins to exert meager force upwards.

You’re ultimately surprised when you are, actually, lifted into the air – not from the front, where Dave struggles with his eyes shut tight, but from the back, where a weightless presence folds against your lower spine all the way up to your shoulders. It feels nothing like hands. You hover uncontrollably a few inches off of the ground, marionette limp.

Dave opens his eyes and gasps loudly, letting go of you as if burned. You drop back down to the floor a mere moment after Dave let’s go, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“No!” Exclaims the six-year-old in true belief, “It’s too soon! I’m too powerful!”

He escapes to his room in a hurry, thumping up the steps.

Frankly, you’re a little shell-shocked, but not so much that you’re afraid Dave is now hurt or scarred forever. As far as you can tell, it has the same weight as a prank.

You turn around and spot a few signs of Caliborn being present, but not as many as usual. Maybe he’s tired himself out by lifting you without setting you on fire. It would make sense, considering he still can’t get those damn knives out of the wall.

“HE’S. DRAMATIC.”

You can’t help it – you chuckle. “He’s adorable.” You place a hand over your shoulder, reaching farther to your back. Nothing. No holes burned through. “I’m impressed. You’ve shown restraint in not frying me and in not exposing your hand to Dave. What gives, _hombre._ Feeling sentimental, are we.”

Caliborn’s returning chuckle is not so much a laugh as it is a feeling of off-vibration, like a horde of wasps waiting out of view. “SMART LITTLE BOY. FOR ONCE. YOU RECALL THAT YOU ARE MINE. MY PERISHABLE. LIKE A LOLLIPOP. I WILL DO WITH YOU AS I. SEE. FIT.”

Something nuzzles close to your ear drum not unlike a tornado that can rip air from lungs, sound from interpretation. It’s not scalding, but is also not devoid of heat.

“TELL ME, DIRK. HOW MANY LICKS DOES IT TAKE?”

Oh, too easy.

“Depends; buckle or no buckle.” You smirk preemptively.

It takes him a few more seconds than it normally would, when you’d make sure to elaborate on your heinously sexual humor, really grind your heel into it, but he sighs full-heartedly all the same and fades from both sense and temperature.

“Serves y’ right for suggesting you’d lick me ‘til I was done,” you complain under your breath, self-satisfied in the way you slam-dunk Dave’s empty AJ bottle into the recycling bin.

For December 3rd of 2021, Dave’s seventh birthday and your twenty-second, you fashion a small army of wooden frames and buy glass panels so that Dave can officially hang up whatever art he wants to in his room.

Also on that day, you receive a bottle of sparkling water from Hal with an attached note that says, “Happy Belated Birthday’ and still lists 2020 as the year. Carbonated water is gross. You pour it down the sink.

Fucking prick. You mail him a single packet of mint gum. He hates mint gum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VthBt5XR5c4)   
[[CLICK HERE for Buddha's spider thread story]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider%27s_Thread)   



	6. And When The Cops Ask Me The Reason, I Will Say I Don't Really Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Internalized toxic masculinity, flirting, nudity, referenced child abuse, physical abuse, child endangerment, tense and awkward situations, kid assaulting an adult, nosebleeds, injuries, torture, severe bruising, injuries to a child (carpet burn), Fight/Flight/Fawn/Freeze mentality, being compared to one's abusive parent, minor dissociation, implied future self-harm.

Let’s get one thing clear: you admit to some of your mistakes readily and accept a healthy dose of humility, despite what some people (Hal) will have others believe. Subpar housekeeping is regularly one of them.

  
  


“Thought I fixed this damn thing...” You grumble to yourself as you stand over the bathroom sink. Its flow comes out at a trickle, yet you can’t seem to remove whatever’s blocking it with a normal cleaning snake.

  
  


In a world where the answer to one’s questions is in an online collection only a few finger taps away, it is still a function dependent on the person’s ability to accurately describe the question in a way recognizable to the search algorithm in order to receive the proper help.

  
  


It seems as if you have asked the wrong question, and gotten an ineffective solution in turn. You put down the supplies you bought for this venture specifically, disappointed with yourself. For someone who grew up on the internet, you aren’t utilizing it very well.

  
  


Just as you begin to resign yourself to asking your question again, only this time wording it differently and with a much less confident attitude, Caliborn can be felt before he is seen or heard. You try not to roll your eyes or slap your phone down in coalescing irritation.

  
  


“WHAT HAS GONE WRONG?”

  
  


“Dunno.” You’re reluctant to tell him of all people (entities?) what you’ve done incorrectly. You can feel a headache coming on, and it’s so stupid. Why do you have to act like this when things don’t go to plan?

  
  


Caliborn makes a noise not unlike a considering hum, if only it didn’t sound like a broken speaker valiantly attempting to croak out one last chopped and screwed dubstep song at full volume. Your inner ear tickles.

  
  


“YOU CHILDREN. AND YOUR NEW TOYS.” With no chance to say anything more, the sink snake, a cheery yellow plastic barbed wire made to presumably grab all the hair that wasn’t there, is burned into a faded black puddle that will surely stain the floor and be a bitch to clean up.

  
  


You make an aborted movement to stop it, before realizing the futility, and leaning back against the wall. At least he’s left the drain cleaner fluid that came with it alone. “Not that you care, but I could’ve saved that for later use.”

  
  


Cal snorts. It creates a dry, hot wind across your shoulder. Gross – ghost breath.

  
  


“DESCRIBE THIS PROBLEM. OF YOURS. TO ME.”

  
  


Whatever you fuckin’ say, Amelia Bedelia.

  
  


“It wasn’t clogged, and I don’t know what this build-up is. As far as I know, all sinks have this.” There’s a stretch of silence wherein neither of you contribute, letting your inexperience and shitty upbringing fog the air. _Lord._ “It won’t budge.”

  
  


“THAT IS A MASSIVE HARD WATER DEPOSIT.” He floats around your head, going through the walls of the bathroom and presumably somewhat into Dave’s room, which is empty because the kid’s at school. “IT IS REMOVED BY SOAKING IT IN WHITE VINEGAR, THEN SCRUBBING. USE PLENTY OF WATER.”

  
  


“Cool, cool...” You don’t quite say thanks, somewhat pole-axed with how unexpectedly helpful Cal is being; it’s not as if you thought to ask the resident ghost for bathroom cleaning tips.

  
  


You wonder what he wants.

  
  


Nevertheless, he tries to tip over the bottle of white vinegar you pull out from under the sink, something you only bought because Jane insisted. “I AM NOT A BABY. AND YOU ARE NO PIGEON.”

  
  


“Man, you know what I mean.” You, oddly, feel flirted with. It’s not a nice feeling, considering you haven’t prepared yourself to be in that mindset. You’re covered in somewhat dirty water, clothes stained with a bright green noxious cleaner that splattered everywhere when you pulled the snake out too fast in preparation for all the gunk that did not exist. Not your sexiest look. You feel not unlike a child being gently taught by the meanest teacher in the school who, wonder of wonders, felt pity for the special kid from the bad home.

  
  


“IN THIS HOUSE. HARD WATER DEPOSITS ARE COMMON. WATER HIGH IN MINERALS CAN BE ROUGH ON SENSITIVE SKIN.” A merely warm claw barely grazes underneath your chin, if it weren’t for you ticking your head up at the last second to dodge it, untrusting of this suddenly playful mien not to flip and abruptly burn you as soon as you show lax.

  
  


“Dave has had a bit of a rash on his neck recently...” You mention, if only to play along a little.

  
  


“HM. YES. HIM.”

  
  


Before you have the chance to examine his tonal inflections and respond in turn, Cal seems to fade entirely.

  
  


You’re left feeling bereft. Of what, you aren’t sure, but something about that interaction nudges at your hindbrain and convinces you that it was odd. Moreso than normal. You’re used to Caliborn’s sudden departures, but this one was _too_ sudden, with no clear catalyst.

  
  


You don’t understand what he, personally, gained from that interaction. You hadn’t even tried to make him uncomfortable. Not on purpose, anyways. Once again, you guiltily want for a presence that you shouldn’t, if only for the distraction.

  
  


You come to no solid hypothesis much less conclusion by the time you’ve finished following Cal’s advice, the hard water buildup being methodically destroyed from every sink and drain in the house. You eagerly shuck off the dirtied clothing and take a shower after looking up the best brand of soft water converters, thinking about investing in one for the sake of Dave’s skin. You wonder if you should introduce showering to Dave today, or wait until you actually install the soft water converter.

  
  


Among those reasons, showering will mean less of a chance for Dave to damn well drown while you’re unaware and not observing him.

  
  


Then again, you think as you let the hot water run over the tense line of your back, Dave could just as easily slip and fall in the shower as he could quietly drown in the tub.

  
  


You add an anti-slip mat to your mental shopping list. Or perhaps Dave would enjoy textured stickers to stand on, ones with bright pictures. You bet there’s some with unicorns, or maybe bugs. You rule out the possibility of standing on bug stickers almost immediately, because hell to the fuck naw. That is one of Dave’s interests that you will happily stay one entire barge pole away from.

  
  


When you’re still wet from the shower, you smooth on a thick layer of shea butter all over your body. You don’t enjoy looking in the mirror overmuch, considering your eyes are familiar in a way that does not imply strict ownership, but when you do happen to glance over at the fully-formed, not-cracked-or-broken mirror, your hindbrain nudges you once more.

  
  


You pause. With one hand on your chest, a streak of buttery and shiny skin left behind your swipe, you stare at yourself.

  
  


Against your own logical will, you consider the hypothesis that perhaps Caliborn wasn’t implying that Dave’s skin was sensitive, but was instead insinuating that yours is.

  
  


Soft. Sensitive. You absentmindedly rub the moisturizer further into your collarbones, soothed by the repetitive motion.

  
  


No one’s ever implied that before, nor explicitly said it. You’ve never been seen as soft or sensitive unless in insult. It would make more sense for Dave to be seen as soft – he’s a child, after all. He's not comparable to you if one doesn’t look at the profile of his face, or ask which man in the pick-up line is his brother.

  
  


You realize that you’re making a strange face in the mirror and quickly look away. On the damp counter is your economically sized tub of shea butter and your satin headband. Somewhere downstairs, your hand cream, which doubles as a cuticle cream as far as you’re concerned, openly exists on the coffee table. You know Dave uses it when you aren’t looking. His finger swipes dug into the pale orange mixture like footsteps in mud are too small to be yours.

  
  


If your dad were here, he’d smack the shit out of you, and then he’d lay Dave over his knee by proxy. You’re not entirely convinced that you wouldn’t deserve it, but you are resolutely positive that Dave wouldn’t. Doesn’t. Not ever, no matter what he does, and what he will someday do.

  
  


Finishing your careful routine is painstakingly done with heavy thoughts weighed on your mind, bowing your head down towards the floor so as to avoid even the slightest glance at the mirror.

  
  


If Caliborn were to ever call you sensitive, say that you're worth care and consideration for whom you are, then it’s because he’s insulting you. There is no other probable conclusion between men and men-shaped beings, fanciful hypothesis before it aside. You tell yourself this while smoothing gentle fingers over your deceptively soft and unmarred palms, and you believe it.

* * *

“Oh. _That’s_ where you live? Are you kidding?”

  
  


You aren’t prepared for the sheer amount of surprise in Kankri’s voice when you tell him your address, powerless in the face of the _quid-pro-quo_ of social standings amongst ‘friends’ who desire to know where their children are at all times.

  
  


“Yes.” You pat Dave on the head as he clings to your leg, clearly wondering why you’re holding up the parade, standing around in Kankri’s open front door when y’all should’ve been gone already. “It’s out of the way, I know.”

  
  


“It’s not that...” Kankri thumbs at his lip, an unconscious gesture you’ve witnessed Karkat clumsily mimicking before. “It’s just that… Well, when I moved here with Karkat, I took a look at that house, too, but was told that it was slated for condemnation and demolition. Not that I could’ve afforded a house, anyways, not even one of such… Dereliction.”

  
  


He gives you an apologetic look, as if you’ll be offended over this new information about the ‘woodside crackhouse’ you apparently landed against all odds.

  
  


As you drive a sleepy Dave home, you compile what you know into neat lines in your head, almost comically going down each and picking through them for seeds while still keeping a steady hand on the driver’s wheel.

  
  


Uneasily, you chock the house’s contradictory sale availability in the past to Caliborn’s supernatural influence. Yet you cannot help but unwittingly think back to the incredibly nervous and unprofessional ‘seller’ who had claimed not to know anything about the house’s past owners. Nor many details concerning the property at all, beyond that it was a house, it was for sale, and yes they’d take upfront cash on the down-low.

  
  


You resolve to question Caliborn when you get home. Given that he’s in a good mood, whatever those even look like on him.

  
  


Dave is tired enough that you put him to bed a little earlier than normal for a Saturday night. Guiltily, you feel relieved – you’re unsure how your conversation with Cal will go. If it’s like those in recent memory, you could either be left incredibly confused, or you will be buying another couch once more.

  
  


You calmly walk back out and go around the side of the house to the backyard. You busy yourself with taking down the line of clothes you’d put up earlier that day, satisfied to discover that everything’s dried, and no bugs are trying to find secret refuge between the folds of your boxers. Again. You shudder.

  
  


Setting the full basket down next to you, you make yourself comfy on the Sittin’ Boulder (after moving Sprite and placing him on top of the folded clothes. You don’t know how the stuffed crow was left here, but you might as well return it to Dave) and look up at the darkening sky, its edges still stained pink. Birds call near constantly, specifically the ever present corvids. A few land on the branches of the treeline. One of them stares at you with beady eyes holding vaguely red-tinged malice.

  
  


You give it a salute. It flies away into the blued blackness, and nary a few moments later do you find yourself enshrouded in a green glow accompanied by a heat that isn’t so unwelcome this time.

  
  


“HOW RARE IT IS. THAT I BE GRACED WITH YOUR CALL TO MEETING. TELL ME, DIRK STRIDER. HAS THE SMALL WARD OF OURS. BEEN SPEAKING WITH HIS FISTS.”

  
  


“No. He’s been behaving himself.” You breathe in the night air, tainted by supernatural heat. “I have a query about this house of yours. If you’d be so obliged as to answer.”

  
  


“YEARS YOU’VE BEEN HERE. WITH ME. AND **NOW** YOU WANT INFORMATION?”

  
  


“Thought I knew all I needed to.”

  
  


“YOU DIDN’T.” He says it so simply that you can hardly argue, now can you?

  
  


“The guy who babysits Dave told me something interesting.” You let that statement hang in the air, trying to gauge his response and whether or not you’re safe in continuing this route, when something that would only be mistaken for a hand were you as high as a kite wraps around your ankle like a hot steam press.

  
  


As you hiss and jerk backwards, nearly falling off of your rock, Caliborn comes overtop of you to peer down into your soul with his sharp red eyes. “DO NOT MAKE ME WAIT. I WILL ANSWER IF I PLEASE. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO WAITS. ON ME.”

  
  


_Not like you do anything of the utmost importance,_ is what you don’t say. “Shit, a’ight – I was just givin’ you the chance to fuck off if you wanted to. Exc_uuse_ me.”

  
  


“I DO NOT WISH. TO FUCK OFF.”

  
  


Paradoxically, you try not to laugh even as you massage the abused skin of your ankle. “Fine. Kankri said that when he moved here a few years back, your house wasn’t for sale, and it was about to be demolished. I wanted to know what changed between then and when I came around, snatched this place up within only a week of being here.”

  
  


There’s a lull, which you hadn’t expected. Cal seems as if he is genuinely considering what you’ve said, which you never would’ve dreamed of when you first started living here, and yet…

  
  


“I AM UNSURE.” The miasma of him circles you slowly, much less like a shark and more like a lazy crocodile with its head barely poking above water while its log of a body drifts behind. “THE RESIDENT BEFORE YOU. AND OUR WARD. SEEMED TO BE SUCH A LONG TIME AGO. MANY THINGS ABOUT LIFE HAVE CHANGED IN THAT PERIOD. SUCH AS YOUR BRAINDEATH MACHINES. AND YOUR INSTRUMENTS OF GLOWING FILTH. OF WHICH YOU COLLECT MONEY FROM.”

  
  


You shift on your boulder seat, considering. “So, the last people who lived here did so before cellphones and laptops were a thing. That’s neat to know, but it doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

  
  


“PATIENCE, LITTLE BOY.” Something that doesn’t hurt gently knocks against your nose. You immediately don’t understand, and do nothing in response, flummoxed by the treatment. “MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE. FEELS NO NEED TO SHAKE HANDS. WITH ONLY A FORWARD TIMELINE. I HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR LONGER THAN YOUR LITTLE HEAD CAN COMPREHEND.”

  
  


You give up on trying to follow his progression with your eyes and instead plop your chin down onto your hand, elbow on one knee while you wait for him to take his several eons thinking of the answer to one simple fucking question.

  
  


“THE ONE WHO ESCORTED YOU TO ME. I HAD NOT SEEN THEM BEFORE. THOSE REAL ESTATE RIFFRAFF. ALWAYS FELT THE NEED TO POKE INTO EVERY CORNER. CHANGE THINGS. BEFORE SELLING. OR ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY.”

  
  


As per usual with him, you feel as if the snippets he reveals have a moral to their story that lingers just out of your grasp. You need only tug the correct thread in order to learn said moral, but missteps in your decisions as to which thread to pursue can lead to awful consequences. You decide to stay quiet, and to let him speak further, should he deign to.

  
  


“A CONUNDRUM. FOR A LIVING BOY. BUT I DO NOT BURDEN MYSELF WITH SUCH FOLLY. NON-STANDARD CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE LED YOU TO ME. BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE – I AM NO SUCH THING AS GRATEFUL.”

  
  


A creeping feeling begins over your shoulder, like a vine being dragged down your back, or perhaps a snake hitching a ride. You stay very, very still, like it’ll save you from harm. It won’t.

  
  


A tightness comes across your hips, like rope bindings only unreal yet alive, and suddenly your stillness is not of your own design.

  
  


“AFTER ALL. I WAS MADE TO BE. WORSHIPED.”

  
  


Something ‘bites’ your right hip, ending in a small pocket of flames directly over where you intimately know your swirled scar to be. However, horrifyingly, you’re utterly frozen, unable to even scream or squirm or fight back. It’s a nightmare. It always is.

  
  


You gaze listlessly into the green cloud of the poltergeist’s existence as he burns you from several inches away, your body locked up, your control over your mind slipping through like water in a sieve while you begin to feel less and less sane, begin to feel small and hunted.

  
  


As abruptly as it’s happened, it’s done, nerves that were screaming in pain all going dead instantaneously. You slump until you’re touching the soft, cool grass of the ground, unsure if you’re breathing harshly or not breathing at all.

  
  


You know by now that, technically, you are uninjured. That the pain is done. But you also know that, no matter how much you wish it, you cannot stop your shaking and your sniveling and your glassy eyes until the adrenaline has run its course through you.

  
  


You don’t regret asking. But you do regret listening so intently, leaving yourself open to attack so easily as if you were four years old again and being handed a practice sword for the first time, swinging it around idiotically, not understanding or perhaps disbelieving of what was to come.

  
  


“GET INSIDE. IT IS COLD.” When he disappears, you do notice that it is, actually, chillier than you’re comfortable with. Cal’s presence must’ve negated the temperature change, as it is now near pitch black outside.

  
  


Sluggishly, you stand up and haul the basket full of folded laundry with its floppy passenger inside like it weighs ten tons instead of a mere ten pounds. You body acts as if you have an active injury, wanting to make you limp and cower and curl up, stay still, stay hidden, but you know otherwise, so you fight through it until your unhelpful prey-like mindset gets the hint and fucks off.

  
  


When you’re inside, you become aware of a presence. At first, you tense horribly, thinking that perhaps Caliborn hadn’t left at all, and is instead hiding in plain sight for you, wanting to continue the sick game that you’re too tired to parse the rules to.

  
  


However, when you flick on the lamp with the ugly 60s shade in the entrance way, you find yourself blinking at Dave. He is sitting on the couch, staring at you with an expression you’re not entirely familiar with.

  
  


While you’re grasping at words like straws falling from your clumsy fingers, Dave stands up and shuffles on his feet. His pajamas are pink. You hardly remember buying those for him, but figure that you must have. Their peter pan-type collar and periwinkle sparkles make you deeply uncomfortable for knee-jerk reasons you know are not logical, and are learned from a man you don’t regret disposing of.

  
  


“I couldn’t find you inside,” Dave says. “I know I was suppose’ t’ be in bed, but...” He trails off, expecting you to understand.

  
  


You do. You set the laundry basket aside, stopping only long enough to retrieve Sprite, uncaring of the chore unfinished as you walk over to Dave and sit down on the couch in front of him. His eyes are presently dry, but you can already spot the signs telling you that he is fully capable of crying at any point.

  
  


Shit.

  
  


“Sorry, baby.” You hand him his crow and rub his back softly. “Was outside with Cal. Bringing in the laundry. Started talking, lost track of time.”

  
  


When the day comes that Dave turns eighteen and will most likely want nothing more to do with you, you’ll have ceased attempting to keep count of the innumerable instances in which ‘I lost track of time’ was your main excuse given.

  
  


You belatedly wonder just how often Dave gets out of bed to peek over the railing, trying to see if you’re still where you’re supposed to be. Wonder how deep that vein of anxiety sits inside of him, and what you can do to alleviate it.

  
  


With a great amount of repentance, you allow Dave to get a small glass of chocolate milk before you follow him up to his room. You get him settled into bed – he crushes Sprite to his chest, and by now you’ve nearly forgotten that Hal once crafted the critter.

  
  


Dave stops you with a hand curled into your shirt as you turn to leave, unknowingly brushing a knuckle against your scarred hip. You try not to jerk away like a startled ‘possum.

  
  


“I know it’s dumb and I’m not a little kid anymore, but can you sleep in here tonight?” Dave says this all in something of a rush, his pronunciation slurred as it typically is when he doesn’t pay special attention to such a thing.

  
  


You agree – why wouldn’t you? Dave claiming to ‘not be a little kid anymore’ does something strange to your heart that makes it hurt, because to you, he’s still exactly the same as the toddler that rolled up one day and gave you both the stress and the stability you were in need of. You request a few minutes to go brush your teeth. He says ‘okay’, but it’s so reluctant that you wonder if you’ve done something wrong. Or, well, more wrong than you’ve already committed.

  
  


In the bathroom, ever avoidant of the man in the mirror that always seems to be looking directly at you with poignancy even as your own eyes point elsewhere, you wonder about that flannel jacket you’d once found shoved up into a crack in the wall. Whose it could’ve possibly been before yours. You thumb a line down the wooded walls in thought.

  
  


Well, whatever suspicious, bureaucratic shenanigans happened here, it doesn’t matter now. You have the paperwork saying that the house is yours.

* * *

You’re in the shower, examining the round sticker you found stuck to the wall instead of the bottom of the tub where it should be, figuring that maybe Dave got bored while washing one day and peeled the anti-slip flower up, when you hear his heart-stopping scream of fear coming from downstairs.

  
  


You’re immediately launched into a panicked frenzy, uncaring of how you get to Dave, only knowing that it must happen _now_.

  
  


In your haste, you put most of your weight on the one spot of the slippery tub now missing a sticker. Your foot promptly slides out from under you like you’re in a Looney Toons cartoon and you’ve just met your comedic fate on an errant banana peel.

  
  


You’re not entirely aware of falling, only of that you were standing one moment, then dazedly lying half-on the tub rim and half-off the next. It’s like being aware of a missing piece of memory. The human mind can only process things so fast, you recall in a lash of deja-vu. You were so focused on getting out, getting away, that you apparently didn’t even attempt to grab onto anything.

  
  


Stunned, you lie on your hip, which aches like a motherfucker, and almost cast from your stupefied mind the reason for your embarrassing tumble.

  
  


Dave. Dave is in danger.

  
  


You fight past the blossoming pain of your hip, slithering out of the still-running shower and onto the cold tiles of the bathroom floor. You stand up with gargantuan effort, the entire right side of your body refusing to comply with your commands, and tie a towel tightly around yourself.

  
  


The bathroom door slams itself open without you needing to touch it, and you nearly go vaulting down the stairs without looking before you come to a screeching stop at what you see.

  
  


Dave is suspended upside down in the living room, not far from where you stand on the second floor landing, bawling his eyes out with a face so red you’re gruesomely reminded of a head-explosion scene you once saw in one of Dad’s movies. It takes you an even longer second to recognize a green ‘hand’ holding onto his ankle, a rapidly crisping bundle of towels between it and his skin.

  
  


You leap over the railing like you do it for a living and ignore the extra pain that earns you, standing directly under Dave’s floating body with your arms held up silently in the universal ‘drop and I’ll catch’ position.

  
  


He comes falling down. You catch him. He takes great heaving gasps and you collapse with him onto the floor, crouching down flat on your heels as you bury your face into the top of his head, his body held suspended against yours in what is no doubt a wet embrace.

  
  


You clumsily scoot backwards like a crab until your back touches the bottom of the staircase, where you finally sit and uncurl slightly from around Dave. He weeps quietly, a contrast to earlier when all he could seem to do is scream, face a little less red but all the more wet now.

  
  


Caliborn hovers above, unspeaking. You gaze up at him and want to say a million things and yet nothing at all. You want to say ‘thank you’, you want to beg for him to ‘leave us alone’, you want to think of a joke that will make Dave laugh and everything will be okay again.

  
  


In your arms, Dave has trouble breathing in the same way you now have trouble speaking, your body quaking even as you tell yourself that you’re supposed to be the fixed point here. Supposed to be the rock to lean against, the soothing words of wisdom. You are none of these. You are simply traumatized.

  
  


A tissue box floats over. You stare at it. Tissues begin pulling themselves out, one by one, until it’s a veritable fountain of wasted money. The little white sheets fall down feather-soft onto Dave’s face, causing him to focus on them. Slowly, he begins to calm, picking one tissue and burying his face into it.

  
  


You look up at Cal and try again. _“God -__”_ is all you manage to get out, and then you give up, because you’re damn near sure that your next brilliant plan will be to begin shouting expletives as if your last name is Vantas.

  
  


You give it a few more minutes, if only to let yourself sit there and hold your brother in your arms until he stops shaking. “Dave. Tell me what happened.”

  
  


Dave seems to go tense, then limp. You close your eyes against what is to come. You know his signs of stress too well now – he’s afraid.

  
  


“I was jus- just trying to go down the stairs like you do.”

  
  


Your eyes snap back open. _“What.”_

  
  


Contradictory, Dave seems both scared of the consequences you will dole out because of his actions, yet also seems to try and burrow his way further into the cage of your arms and legs. His reply is muffled, “I don’t like the stairs, they- so I tried to do it like you do. But I fucked up.”

  
  


Immediately, you want to hit yourself for skylarking down the stairs so often without making even the most cursory of efforts to instruct Dave to not copy you.

  
  


“No, Dave, I… you don’t need to be doin’ that, okay. I do it ‘cuz I’m a fuckin’ weirdo. You don’t need to do what I do.” You breathe in and out steadily, lightly rubbing your hand against Dave’s shoulder even as he refuses to unhide his face from your stomach. “If you got hurt, I don’t know what I would do. Understand? You are important to me. More important than anyone.”

  
  


Your statement hangs in the air with a significance you’re not entirely sure you’re ready to wield, but must now stick by.

  
  


At a glacial pace, Dave removes his face from its hiding place in order to gaze up at you with eyes you feel as if you’re too unworthy of meeting. You see each busted, bloodied vein of his sclera branching out with seeking red fingers, overshadowing what would have been undoubtedly sweet brown eyes that would look nothing like your father’s, or like yours, or like Hal’s.

  
  


You try to swallow spit, only for your throat to click dryly.

  
  


“So do you love me?” Asks Dave in a terribly empty voice.

  
  


You nod.

  
  


“So can you say it?” He blinks at you once, innocent-to-be if not for the possessive way he digs his little fingers into the meat of your left arm. Seeking warmth must be a family trait.

  
  


“What?” You say this for a reason that begins with ‘commitment’ and ends with ‘issues.’ You are subsequently embarrassed for yourself.

  
  


“Say that you love me.”

  
  


You stupidly try to swallow nothing again. You fail. “Of course I love you, Dave. You’re my li’l bro, my li’l dude I keep around ‘cuz he’s funny and a great guy.” You poke him on the nose, making a little ‘honk’ noise. His smile is slow to appear, but shows teeth and even allows giggling just the tiniest bit. “I’d care if you got hurt, and I’d care if you weren’t here with me. I care when you go to school and when you’re at home but I can’t see you ‘cuz we’re doing our own stuff. Got it?”

  
  


“Got it.” He graces you with another smile, and, as sneakily as one whole elephant, wipes all of the shower water from you that he got onto your towel.

  
  


“You want some looove?” You say it in a goofy voice, because you’re almost positive that if you tried to say it with a straight face, you’d implode somehow.

  
  


Dave doesn’t bother stopping to say yes, instead he launches himself forward like a striking eel and mushes his mouth to your mouth, making an over-exaggerated ‘mwah!’ sound when he disconnects. Even you have to laugh a little bit, because it’s fucking adorable.

  
  


When he tries to get up, though, is when something goes wrong.

  
  


He accidentally digs his heel into the hip you honestly forgot you just seriously fell on, and you let out a pained gasp, curling inward on reflex.

  
  


“Bro!? I’m sorry!” Dave kneels back down in front of you, putting his hands on your side like he can feel out what ails you. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

  
  


“It’s nothing. I slipped in the shower when I heard...” You wave your hand esoterically, justified in the way you avoid acknowledging that Dave nearly busted his head open while you were busy soaping up your butt.

  
  


It takes a hot second, but then Dave is slapping both hands over his mouth as he gasps. “The sticker! I -”

  
  


“It’s not your fault,” you strive to convince him immediately, but he’s already peeling himself away from you like his touch could hurt you even more. “I wasn’t being careful. Dave, it’s okay.”

  
  


“It’s not okay because -” He smacks his palms flat onto the sides of his legs, staring down at you in a way that makes you abort your attempt to stand. You’re caught in the spider’s web of his eyes, a structure too complicated for a seven-year-old to posses naturally, surely. “Because… If you got hurt, I dunno what I would do.” Your breath catches. A flush blooms on his face, but he keeps going, keeps echoing you. “You’re important to me. More important than anyone.”

  
  


“I got it.” You sigh. Dave holds out a hand, and you take it even though you already know that you’ll be the sole force that helps you stand. “It’ll only bruise. It’s not that bad – it’s like when you trip when you’re running.” Dave hugs you like he has no other option but to, and you let him. “Just a big bruise. It’ll fade.”

  
  


He buries his face into your stomach again, and says, “I hope you’re right.”

  
  


You don’t know how to respond to that, because you understand at some deep level that you rarely acknowledge that he may be speaking about something else entirely right now.

  
  


When you remember to look up for your third member, Caliborn is nowhere to be felt or seen. Upstairs, the shower has shut off.

* * *

To your silent surprise, the next time Karkat is slated to come over for a little play date, Rosa drops him off in her old green Toyota. Kankri is in the front seat, and he waves at you, perfectly happy with his new predicament.

  
  


Even more surprising: as soon as Rosa’s car is out of sight, you guilelessly turn around towards Dave and Karkat, only for Karkat to chuck a good-sized rock at your face.

  
  


Since you most definitely aren’t expecting it, you take the rock to your face like a man, and you go down like the sack of shit you are.

  
  


You squint against the pain, and also the blood invading your eyeballs. Your hip stings, but not as much as it could have were the bruise still fresh. The last clear vision you have is of Karkat screaming and bodily dragging a mighty confused Dave through the treeline.

  
  


“FUCK YOU! EAT SHIT YOU MONSTER! THERE’S NO WAY I’M LETTING YOU HURT DAVE ANYMORE!!” Karkat’s incensed, ruddy face pokes out from in between two pines as you roll about on the ground like a slug after a salt bomb. “YOU ALMOST LET HIM STARVE! WE HATE YOU AND WE’RE NEVER COMING BACK!!”

  
  


God almighty. What the absolute buggering fuck is going on right now.

  
  


You lift yourself from the gravel with much effort, eyes rolling wildly against the blood crowding them. You spit a mouthful of it out, and everything is a sea of red as far as you know.

  
  


Damn. Kid got you good.

  
  


To your relief, Caliborn does not choose that moment to appear and laugh in the face of your pain and bewilderment. Mysteriously, however, the front door is wide open even though you’re sure you closed it. You stumble blindly back inside the house, feeling your way around until you find the kitchen sink. You dunk your head into cold water and finger the injury on your face.

  
  


Head wounds always bleed superficially, you tell yourself as you get what you think may be that ugly cursed yellow rag and use it to apply pressure, ignoring the ache.

  
  


You literally have not a single clue what Karkat was yelling about. Hurting Dave? Almost starving him? You’d never. You’d _never._ And yet, that’s what Karkat claimed. Shouted it for the world to hear. So sure, he bludgeoned you.

  
  


Against common sense, you begin to wonder if maybe you did, somehow, hurt Dave, and was not fully aware of it. Maybe it was emotional hurt. Maybe even physical. Do you black out and have episodes of rage or something? God you hope not. Is he not getting enough to eat?

  
  


Is it really your fault?

  
  


You pause in the middle of smoothing gauze onto the bridge of your nose and taping it down.

  
  


No, no. No it can’t be – you don’t know. But you have to keep a rational head about your shoulders.

  
  


You should go find the kids, first and foremost. Your nose isn’t broken and your eyes are fine, if a bit cloudy. You can do this, at the very least.

  
  


They aren’t hiding very far, it turns out. Dave and Karkat are crouched down just beyond the treeline. Dave is holding Karkat’s face in between his hands while Karkat repeats, very seriously, “I am an idiot sandwich.”

  
  


“Sorry to interrupt,” you say, and Karkat is so startled that he falls down onto his bottom, looking over at you with incredibly wide eyes. “I’m not mad. I just wanna know what’s going on.”

  
  


Dave turns his head towards you, his round sunglasses making him appear almost bird-like. “Karkat thought that you were Dad.”

  
  


Of all the things you expected to hear outta Dave’s mouth, never would it ever be that. “Oh.” You take a step back. “Oh.”

  
  


“I’m sorry,” says Karkat, “I thought I was helping, and I wasn’t, and I shouldn’t have made that assump- assp- UGH you know what I mean. I should’ve asked Dave first. I shouldn’t have hit you with a rock.” He looks around nervously for a moment before adding at a much lower volume, “Please don’t tell my brother. He’ll make me use the atticus during math homework again.”

  
  


“What’s an atticus,” asks Dave, and you rapidly begin to lose control of the significance of this situation.

  
  


“It’s this horrible wooden thing with dumb beads on sticks and you, like, you count with it. It’s boring.”

  
  


You let it go. For now. These kids don’t need their day ruined with your shit, stone-pitching guest aside.

  
  


“Hey.” They both stop their chattering and look back up at you with twin expressions that clearly convey that they’d almost immediately forgotten that you were there. “Before I was grievously assaulted in my own front yard – that was a joke, by the way, I am still not mad – I was making some brownies. You two wanna come help?”

  
  


They agree, because they’re kids and kids fucking love brownies.

  
  


Once Karkat goes home, however, Dave gets skittish. Like he doesn’t want to talk about why what happened, happened.

  
  


You understand. But you’re also familiar with your insatiable need to obtain answers. You sit him down at the kitchen table, tonight’s dinner already eaten and cleared away.

  
  


“So you wanna tell me now?” You watch his expression. It’s unfailingly blank. You hate to consider that maybe he’s learned that from you.

  
  


“I told Karkat some stuff. About Dad.” He ducks his head, like you’re going to reprimand him.

  
  


“Those are your secrets to share. Not mine.” You hold your hands up as if in surrender. “Go on.”

  
  


“I guess I said some stuff that made him think that I was still livin’ with Dad, or that you were both the same person or somethin’.” Dave visibly bites at his lip. “You do kinda look the same, like, when I think about it too much. It just sounded like I was talkin’ about you, I guess.”

  
  


For a long moment that you didn’t see coming and therefore cannot prepare for, you are disoriented with the knowledge that Dave has told Karkat more about his time with Dad than he has told to you. In fact, this is one of the only instances you can think of where Dave has said the word ‘Dad’ at all.

  
  


You get over yourself quickly. You realize that, in a perfect timeline where you (and by proxy Hal) were ‘rescued’ a lot sooner, like Dave was, you wouldn’t want to talk to this imaginary, new guardian about your time with Dad, either. You’d want to talk to Roxy, or Jane, or even Jake. Not some adult. Maybe a nice adult, sure, or even a blood-relative, but they’d still be an adult. And if you remember anything clearly from your time as a child, then it would be how untrustworthy adults could seem to a child who has been mistreated by one, or many.

  
  


“Guess we do...” You belatedly reply, only to realize that it makes no sense. “Look alike, that is. Wish we didn’t, but.” You shrug. Like it doesn’t bother you. (It does.)

  
  


“I kinda, like...” Dave plays with his fingers under the table. You hope he isn’t picking so hard that he hurts himself. You know he’s done it before. “I don’t really remember exactly what he looks like? So whenever I think about him, I think I see you instead.”

  
  


“Oh.” You don’t know what to say to that. Your mind switches tracks. “Can I ask you somethin’ about Dad. You don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna.”

  
  


“Sure. I mean, I guess.”

  
  


“When was the last time you saw him.” The line of Dave’s shoulders tense, then relaxes. Like an asshole, you continue anyways. “That you can remember.”

  
  


He sighs and tilts his head to the side, presumably remembering. “It was like. Early May, or like, maybe late April. The year Hal came to get me. But after that I was alone in the apartment for um, almost a month. Like, almost all of May.”

  
  


“I’m sorry,” you say before the reality of what he’s said catches up with you.

  
  


“’s’okay.” He forgives so easily, so unknowingly. “It’s not like you did it. He did, and now he’s gone, so it’s fine.” Tellingly, however, he wipes up under his sunglasses. “He left enough food that I got by for a while. But I’m glad Hal came when he did. I’d run out of ramen.”

  
  


Your hands clench onto the tops of your thighs, and you dig your nails into your flesh in an attempt at grounding yourself.

  
  


You’re infuriated – you calculate that the beginning of May, and for all of that month, was the time that you’d left. You had nearly a month alone here with Cal before Hal dropped Dave off, and apparently during that time, Dave was a toddler left alone and starving in Dad’s shitty porn apartment.

  
  


You wonder where Dad got off on abandoning his only dependent son left like that, wonder if it was connected at all to how you ran away around that time. Your fault that Dave nearly starved, and that you hadn’t even the presence of mind like Hal did to think about him. To go get him.

  
  


Dave is truly crying, now, but he’s hunched over and quiet, like he’s trying to hold it in. You don’t like that.

  
  


“Hey.” He moves perhaps a fraction in response, but you can tell that he’s looking at you. “You wanna c’mere?”

  
  


The words are barely out of your mouth before he’s scooting his chair back and practically running towards you. You can hardly stand up in time to catch him, because he slips on his socked feet against the linoleum.

  
  


Even though he acts like he’s a ‘big kid’ now, you still pick him up and rest him against your hip, which becomes less and less feasible the more he grows. He automatically spreads his legs and then locks them around your back, arms already bunched up around your neck.

  
  


You tote him outside, and sit on the bench in front of the house. It’s where he likes to go when he wants to be alone, wants to think in the quiet. Sometimes when he gets home from school, he doesn’t even go inside the house first before he sits on his bench. You try to respect his space and simply let him be. He comes inside when he’s ready to, and not a moment sooner.

  
  


This time, you’re both on the bench. Dave clings to you long after he’s stopped crying, and at first you think that he’s gone to sleep, but then he scoots around until he’s sitting next to you instead of on you. He re-latches onto you by putting his arms around your waist, though.

  
  


He asks if y’all can eat ice cream and watch Lego Batman. You say yes, because you’re slowly losing your ability to tell him no.

* * *

You somehow get roped into doing Dave’s eighth birthday at Kankri’s apartment. Even _you_ don’t understand how it all went down – one second, Kankri was commenting on the depreciation of religious artifacts in the current media climate, and the next, he was asking you what kind of cake Dave would want that Saturday, because this kid’s birthday conveniently falls on a day he will be babysit anyways.

  
  


You didn’t agree, and yet you also did not take the care to explicitly _dis_agree. In the end, Kankri looked a little too satisfied with himself, and you were left with an equally shell-shocked Dave, sitting in your truck as a few flurries fell down as if to narratively complete the ridiculousness of the scene.

  
  


Dave looks over at you. You look over at Dave.

  
  


“Vantases,” he sighs, dramatically put-upon in tone. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

  
  


“Yea,” you agree, and silently think that his childish seriousness behind the words are downright hilarious. You decline to inform him that his phrase typically refers to women. “So – what d’you want for your birthday?”

  
  


He scrunches up his nose and draws a sloppy heart onto the condensation of the window. You turn the heat up a bit, but this old truck takes more than while to warm. “You’ve never asked me before what I wanted for my birthday.”

  
  


“Yea, well, somebody told me that you were a big kid now, so I’ve gotta play by the big kid rules.” You nudge him on the shoulder with a closed fist, and he gives you one of his bashful little smiles, the kinds that he has for you even when he’s being a little turd. “So? Got any ideas? Runnin’ out of time here, kiddo, so think fast.”

  
  


He hasn’t thought of a present by the time y’all get home, and you honestly hadn’t expected him to. You only wanted to get his brain juices flowing.

  
  


On Monday, Dave eventually shyly tells you that he’d really like a different game to play on his laptop. Skyrim and Minecraft are godlike, obviously, but he says he wants to know what other games are out there.

  
  


You collect some games that you’re sort of sure will be okay for Dave to play. You shamelessly mail your list to Hal and ask for his opinion, and he replies quite fast for two idiots still using snailmail. He’s unexpectedly added Undertale and its recently complete sibling, Delta Rune, to the list, even though you clearly recall him bashing the games a few years before. You gracefully decline to call him out on it – you’re asking for his help, after all.

  
  


You can only hope that Dave hasn’t been spoiled for any of the games you’ve picked during his (highly restricted, mind) travels on the internet.

  
  


On Saturday, the two of you given free reign of Kankri’s humble apartment for the day, Dave likes his gift. You’d hope so, considering you did your best to give him exactly what he asked for. Kankri and Karkat surprisingly get him something as well – a rudimentary artist’s set, complete with a small wooden easel, a few sheets of thick paper, some pencils and markers, and a simple pallet of paints.

  
  


You must thank Kankri a mite too profusely, well aware of his financial situation, because he gets a little snippy with you and banishes you from the kitchen to go watch the movie (Wreck It Ralph 3) with the kids. You go obediently, because you get genuinely uncomfortable when yelled at. Also this isn’t your house, and when you’re not trailing after Kankri, you’re hovering over the kids for a lack of other tasks given.

  
  


Unsurprisingly, the kids aren’t that interested in a movie that you’ve already heard is a sub-par three-qual. They’d much rather paw at Dave’s new art supplies and also, for some reason you don’t see the logic in other than pure jackassery present only in boys their age, they make a rudimentary slip-n-slide with pillows.

  
  


It’s bound to end in disaster. You don’t stop them, because you’re hoping that whatever the outcome may be, it’s mild enough that it will be a lesson learned instead of a trip to the hospital. You understand that kids sometimes simply must learn things for themselves, and won’t truly grasp the concept if only told. Even if told a thousand times.

  
  


Still – you notice immediately when something goes wrong. Mostly because it happens to Dave.

  
  


He slides on his stomach across the small airstrip of pillows, shouting excitedly, but as he reaches the edge, he goes a little off, onto the carpet. His noise stops abruptly. He stands up too quickly, stiffly, and stares at the wall for a moment before turning around and walking back towards Karkat, who appears merely excited for his turn, and completely unaware that something bad may have just happened.

  
  


Dave moves gingerly, like he’s favoring some part of himself not visible behind his clothing.

  
  


You suck on your teeth. Dave goes stock still midway through returning to the other edge of the pillow slide.

  
  


“Dave.” He turns around, and won’t look at you. “You okay, _muchacho. _Somethin’ you wanna tell me.”

  
  


Instead of answering, Dave timidly tiptoes over to where you sit on the couch, and folds himself around you without fully touching you.

  
  


Karkat, in the background, looks lost at the way Dave is acting, still holding himself in launch position at the beginning of their pillowy mistake. Dave shakes, but doesn’t cry openly. You think he may be getting to the age where crying is embarrassing, especially around one’s friends.

  
  


“Okay.” You stand up, keeping your hands on Dave’s puny shoulders as he holds his head down and relies on you to lead him where he needs to go. “C’mere, let’s go take a look. Karkat, you ought’a stay here, or go get your brother. Nothing too bad – Dave’s just got a boo-boo.”

  
  


Karkat looks offended at your use of the word ‘boo-boo’, but scampers off to the kitchen to get his brother all the same.

  
  


You coax Dave into the bathroom, flicking on the light and sitting down on the toilet so that he’s more comfortable at your height. You notice that he’s scrunching his eyes shut for some reason, leaving himself entirely in the dark and at your mercy.

  
  


He must really trust you. That or he’s terrified of what you’ll do to him, and has gone into a state of frozen fear.

  
  


“C’mon,” you demand as softly as you can manage, “lemme see. It’ll be okay, but you gotta let me see first.”

  
  


Shyly, eyes now peeking open, Dave lifts the bottom of his shirt up. On his stomach is an angry red smear where the skin isn’t quite broken but is so thinned that it doesn’t matter. A carpet burn – a nasty one. Gained from when he was doing belly flops onto the pillows with Karkat, no doubt. He must’ve missed and slid onto the carpet, then got back up and acted like nothing was wrong until he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

  
  


You hiss with sympathy, lightly petting his side. Dave turns his head away from both your gaze and the mirror. You pilfer Kankri’s cabinets until you find a decent first aid supply, washing your hands before ripping open an iodine wipe.

  
  


Kankri must come up to the doorway to see what’s wrong, because you hear his telltale gasp that he often lets out when he wants to let Karkat know that he’s done something not allowed. “Oh! Dave, are you okay? What happened? Does it hurt?”

  
  


When Dave seems incapable of answering, you do it for him. “Carpet Burn. Not serious, but it’s a big one.” You do not elaborate on how said burn was acquired, because you ain’t no snitch.

  
  


“Oh, no!” Kankri has one hand placed delicately over his mouth, the other over his chest like he’s a Southern mother at the grocery store holding up the line when her twenty coupons don’t go through. “I’ve got an aloe vera plant, that’s just the trick for this – don’t worry, Dave, it’ll feel better soon.”

  
  


Kankri reaches over and pats Dave’s head, who flinches, eyes snapping open. Kankri doesn’t notice, however, because he’s already run off to wherever he keeps this aloe vera plant at, supposedly to cut a stem open and use its fresh gel on the burn.

  
  


You can’t say you disapprove, for all you’ve never used one. “You okay with this?” You ask Dave, just in case.

  
  


Dave nods. He grips the side of the counter with white knuckles. He must be in a lot of pain. You ineffectively rub your hand up and down his back, rocking him forward a bit with the force. You wish Kankri would hurry up with that magic juice plant of his.

  
  


Karkat pokes his head around a few times, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to come in or not. Dave doesn’t acknowledge him, and you have nothing to say. When Kankri returns, he gently shoos Karkat away.

  
  


You let Kankri apply it, because you don’t know what to do with it otherwise. Dave stands there and takes it, shedding a few more tears but otherwise keeping quiet. You loosely cover his stomach in some gauze.

  
  


“You wanna go home?” Dave shakes his head, but he also doesn’t move to leave the bathroom. “You wanna sit here for a bit?” He doesn’t reply in the negative or positive, so you simply continue to rub his back.

  
  


Nearly half an hour later, Dave begins to breathe easier, and moves from his position against the counter. He still won’t look you in the eyes, but he does step away and flex stiffly, already swiveling his torso like he’s testing his new, temporary limits.

  
  


“Wow,” he intones blandly, “this shit hurts.”

  
  


“Yea, it’ll hurt and feel hot for a while. As long as it doesn’t get infected, you’re good.” You stand up and throw the plastic from the iodone wipe away. “You still wanna stay? I’m sure Karkat won’t get mad if you say you wanna just go home and relax.”

  
  


But Dave wants to stay. You forbid him from taking another go at the pillow slide, and he gives you a look that you interpret to mean, ‘do you think I’m stupid?’ You gently tap him on the back of the head in an almost-reprimand for his attitude, and he disappears into Karkat’s room with the door mostly closed to presumably play more with his easel.

  
  


You’re about to step away, go bother Kankri again, when you hear raised voices from the bedroom. You move closer without thought to Dave’s privacy, or whether or not Kankri will catch you in the act of eavesdropping, peering into the small gap between the door and jamb.

  
  


“Shhh, dude, shush!” Dave quiets his friend, who looks like he’s about to go supernova even though he’s sitting quite primly criss-cross-applesauce on his planet-themed bedspread. On the wall directly behind his head, you can sort of make out a childish drawing of a crab-like creature. You recognize it as Terezi’s handiwork. “Bro’s got hearing like a fuckin’ bat, okay, you can’t be yellin’ around him. He’ll come br- bustin’ in here, wonderin’ where the fire is.”

  
  


“Maybe I don’t wanna be around him,” Karkat snipes back with, harshly turning the pages of a notebook of which you cannot see the contents, “Maybe I still don’t trust him. You ever think of that? Maybe he _is_ a bad guy just like your dad was.”

  
  


Dave only shrugs. “He said he loves me. I believe him. And he- he’s never done anythin’ Dad did.”

  
  


Karkat gives Dave a significant look that you cannot possibly know the context of. “You’re lucky and also a brat, just like Terezi calls you. Kankri never says he loves me.”

  
  


“Have you asked him to? That’s what I had to do -”

  
  


Karkat slaps his notebook down onto the bed harshly, leaning forward as he hisses, “I don’t wanna talk about it, Lalonde.”

  
  


A few moments of tense silence pass. Karkat goes back to flipping pages in his notebook, but it’s obvious that he isn’t really looking, and is instead simply doing something with his angry hands.

  
  


Hesitantly, Dave leans over from his position sitting on his legs on the bed next to Karkat, and headbutts him gently in the shoulder.

  
  


Equally as tentative, Karkat lets out a gusty sigh, but headbutts him back.

  
  


You’ve spied enough, you think. You depart your eye from the crack in the door and creep backwards until you find yourself listlessly sitting down on the living room couch.

  
  


It seems you’re still being compared to Dad. Not only in looks, but in temperament, actions, and personality. Despite spending so much time with you, Karkat is coming under the impression that you’re a boogeyman in disguise. Just like your old man.

  
  


Dave seems uncommitted towards convincing Karkat otherwise. You try not to be mad at him for this, but secretly you’re disappointed at the least. You’ve selfishly wished that by now Dave would hold you in higher regard than he currently does, but the reality is much less sweeter than fantasy.

  
  


You think Kankri tries to ask you if you’re okay, but you lackadaisically wave him off. Give some excuse about being tired, which he nods knowingly at, and thoughtfully gets you a cup of his nasty cocoa, then sits down next to you to quietly watch the news. You drink it.

  
  


You know that you used to wait with breathless want for the day Dave would finally ditch Karkat for a friend you’d approve more of, but now you worry that perhaps your controversial presence will end up causing some kind of rift between the best friends. You don’t want that. It would make Dave unhappy.

  
  


You don’t know. You think you don’t know a lot of stuff, these days. You think that being ‘an adult’ is a scam, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously caught up in some grand scheme of a lie.

  
  


You think you might feel like talking to Caliborn again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcarKvlxzyE)   
[[CLICK HERE for somewhere important]](https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/hunt/wma/find_a_wma/list/?id=30)


	7. Cheated And Lied, Broken So Bad; You Made A Vow, Never Get Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Drug mention (weed), alcohol, child neglect, flirting, tense and uncomfortable situations, injuries, blood, HORROR, graphic fear responses, manipulation, child endangerment, fear wetting, graphic depiction POV of an autistic meltdown, non-verbal/selective muteness, self-harm (stimming), ableist language (ret*rd), forced unconsciousness, internalized ableism, ableism, sexist language (c*nt), implied hypnotism, paranoia, self-hate, accidental yet perfunctorily harmless outing of a transgender character, past Kankri/Cronus, referenced past minor character death, referenced death from childbirth, religious themes (Christianity), past child abuse, past adult forcing child to consume alcohol, children being seriously ill, bodily fluids, vomiting, dissociation.

There are three children in your house. It’s so much louder than you previously assumed it could be. Somebody screams at least once every fifteen minutes, and about 70% of those are from Karkat, which is the only reason why you don’t have a heart attack every single time.

  
  


Dave has had you spoiled, you think, as you lean back on the couch and stare blankly at the ceiling, which absolutely rattles with three pairs of feet running pellmell in your haunted goddamned house.

  
  


Terezi, Dave and Karkat’s little friend, is a surprise. Mostly because she’s slowly going blind, yet still makes incredibly colorful art pieces as often as possible. It’s a little pitiful, how clearly desperate she is to hang on to her sight while she still can, but she also acts quite happy. You try not to dwell on it, like you imagine she tries not to as well.

  
  


Karkat sort of brought her over without fully asking first. He’d mentioned it a few times too many, inelegant in his persuasive overtures. To Karkat, you’d said, “Ask Dave first.” To Dave, you’d said, “Sounds like a plan, li’l man.” But nobody confirmed any dates, so you ignorantly assumed the matter to be held off until the future.

  
  


He and Karkat rode this route’s bus home, and you were waiting at the end of your long ass driveway in the truck when you got a belated call from Kankri, who was out clothes shopping with no other than his secret mother. How quaint.

  
  


Meulin, Rosa’s oldest daughter, is also out somewhere shopping, just not with them exactly. Kanaya, Rosa’s middle daughter, is currently at tae kwon do. Kankri told you all of this without being prompted. So now you know.

  
  


You couldn’t exactly turn the girl around and march her back onto a bus that wasn’t her own, and she did technically have a permission slip signed by her mother, so you’d squeezed her into the truck and rolled it backwards down the driveway – it tickles Dave and Karkat pink when you do this. They seem to think it’s an impossible feat, so you do it as often as possible – and tried to come up with some kind of explanation. Reassurances. Distractions. Escape plans. Mostly, you agonized over what to tell Caliborn.

  
  


You don’t want a dead body on your hands. You understand now that you wouldn’t truly know what to do with it.

  
  


The boys had preemptively seen to it, apparently; Terezi proclaimed that she already knew about Aradia, and therefore had no reason to be surprised about Caliborn. In her eyes, a ghost is a ghost is a ghost.

  
  


Immediately, you admired her in a way you didn’t when she was much younger, when you’d hardly paid any attention to her as a person at all.

  
  


She walked right up to your ghost and said, “Looks like how green apples would smell.” Caliborn didn’t punt her into the atmosphere. She didn’t scream and wet herself, most likely because she couldn’t meet his cherry red hate-filled eyes.

  
  


You considered it a win, even when Cal snuck up around behind you like a viper and made your hip sizzle low for a long thirty seconds. You stood still and tried your best to act like nothing was happening, because the kids were right there. He chuckled into your ear while you burned, frozen not from supernatural means, but from bullheaded stubbornness. You guess it entertained him.

  
  


He vaguely makes up for it by ‘entertaining’ you while the three amigos, whom you’ve for some fucking reason left unsupervised, play in Dave’s room. This ‘entertainment’ involves a lot of staring contests, which you always lose and never know when they begin or end. Sometimes he floats things around your head and makes you try to catch them.

  
  


When you refuse to ‘play’, he does you dirty by snatching Dave’s gaming laptop. It goes airborne, and stays there. You hop up so fast you nearly graze the ceiling.

  
  


Ultimately, despite the anxiety of overseeing a humble abode that is seemingly full of three kids and one entire ghost infant, you run out of energy. It’s exhausting simply being you, you suppose is a way to put it. Caliborn isn’t exactly a conversationalist when he doesn’t want to be, and your phone only has so much on it for you to stare at before you get paranoid and turn it off.

  
  


You doze fitfully on the couch. Caliborn leaves you alone when you do this, and none of the kids start chanting Kumbaya backwards or screaming for real so you assume he isn’t bothering them, either.

  
  


Your dozing eventually turns into actual sleeping. You don’t know for how long, but it’s suitably pleasant, as far as sleep in this place goes. You’re groggily awoken from how god awful hot it is, practically slow-cooking you alive like you’re a soon to be tenderized hunk of meat in a crock pot.

  
  


“Mmmhn...” You complain wordlessly, face shoved into what moonlights as both a couch pillow and your bed pillow. “Cal. Fug’off.”

  
  


“GET UP.”

  
  


You don’t.

  
  


“GET UP. SLEEPY. LAZY. BOY.”

  
  


You hardly even turn over. You are not the rotisserie motherfucker that he is looking for.

  
  


“I HAVE AN ABUNDANCE. OF ENERGY. AS DO THEY. YOUR BEHAVIOR AS A HOST. IS APPALLING.”

  
  


You let out a long sigh full of great depths called ‘no I don’t wanna.’

  
  


“**GET UP.”**

  
  


Out of the corner of your mouth, you grumble, “Kiss my bubbly butt.”

  
  


A fire ant bites you on your left ass cheek.

  
  


You yelp at a pitch you didn’t think yourself capable of, clumsily leaping up off the couch with a strangled, _“Did you seriously just -!?”_

  
  


The children laugh at you from their hiding spot underneath the kitchen table as Caliborn hovers, one finger pointed out. The culprit.

  
  


Dave runs over and starts cooing at you like a pigeon, patting your butt. You gently scoot him away, embarrassed. You don’t need him to get into the habit of poking your ass, especially because he’s already at the perfect height to do so. You love him, but kids are weird. Yes, even your kid. Also, it still stings.

  
  


You feel a quickly blossoming need, not unlike a train without headlights abruptly emerging from a tunnel and heading towards your location, to get these kids out of your goddamn house.

  
  


“Hey.” They all turn to look at you at once. It’d be an overwhelming amount of attention if you weren’t you. “You kids wanna go rollerskating.”

  
  


The kids wanna go rollerskating.

  
  


At Dave’s insistence, you end up getting a pair of roller-skates, too. The sleek kind with a million wheels instead of just four. Nevermind how you’ve never roller-skated before – with your knowledge of physics and control over your body, achieving both balance and speed should be exceedingly simple-

  
  


You wipe the fuck out within less than a minute.

  
  


The kids all crowd around you, acting worried, asking if you’re okay, trying to pull you up (they can’t. You appreciate the effort anyways.) It makes it a mite more difficult to actually stand, but you don’t want to shoo them away in case it comes off as aggressive. It’s a good thing this place is damn near deserted today.

  
  


Hal once told you that if you got out ‘into the real world’, you’d most likely cry and/or sulk whenever embarrassed, because he predicted your personality to be fragile and unable to withstand social pressures.

  
  


“Bro, does your butt hurt again? D’you wanna- want to go sit down?”

  
  


“He has to sit on his butt to do that.”

  
  


“Oh, yea. You wanna go plank on somethin’?”

  
  


Hal was, most unfortunately, probably correct. You fucking hate it.

  
  


You delegate yourself to gripping the safety bars all around the rink while holding Terezi’s hand. She seems excited to be skating, and actually does really well on her own, but she literally cannot see beyond very contrasting colors and extreme shadow/light. If you let her fall on your watch, you’re worried about what Kankri will do. Not her mother – oh no, Rosa’s ballistic missile masquerading as a saint of a son. He could make your life increasingly inconvenient at any point in time, and it haunts you.

  
  


You despise being inconvenienced. When you’re inconvenienced, there’s almost nothing to be done. Grievously wronged? You know that you’re justified in ending somebody for that. But simply mildly inconvenienced? If you start whipping out the vengeful violence then, _you’re_ the crazy one. You’re expected to shrug and take it. There’s just no winning.

  
  


You wonder when you began to lean upon a man you don’t quite think you even enjoy spending time with. You wonder whether he knows. You shakily conclude from his recent behavior that he does not – he must genuinely consider you to be his friend. That doesn’t settle well with you. You are not a good friend.

  
  


“Mr. Strider? Are you okay?” Terezi tugs on your interlocked hands. You realize that you’ve stopped skating and begin again with a mumbled, ‘Sorry.’ She doesn’t seem to be overly concerned in the way she goes back to messily zig-zagging around the circle while miraculously not tripping over your big feet. The white and teal beads in her hair glow fantastically under the occasional black-light interspersed between the normal lights.

  
  


After your lapse in awareness, you feel the need to check on the other two kids.

  
  


Dave and Karkat aren’t the fastest or most stable of skaters, but they flit about the mostly empty rink and engage in games of tag or skate-dancing to the Top 40s pop music that currently sounds like it’s at half volume. Karkat falls at least five times, but he never cries or sits out, so you’re going to have to assume that he’s fine. Dave, surprisingly, doesn’t fall at all. You’re impressed, especially because of all the stunts he pulls at home that result in skinned knees and the like. Maybe he’s trying to impress somebody.

  
  


Whenever Karkat falls, Dave inexpertly skates over and helps him up, which goes about as well as two kids fumbling around on wheels can go. It’s cute. You task Terezi with skating around you in a circle while you take videos. You make sure to get a video of her skating as well, which leads to the both of you being dizzy as hell because she ignored you when you asked her to stop skating circles for a minute.

  
  


While you and Terezi sit out, a woman approaches you. She says that she’s the DJ. She’s one of the only adult employees here, apparently, aside from the ticket master up front and the person manning the snack bar. She says that since there’s so few people tonight, the kids can request specific songs if they’d like, and also that they can turn on the lights, take off their shoes, and have a foot race around the rink before they go home.

  
  


You thank her, and then tell the kids. They immediately jump at the foot race idea. You don’t discourage Terezi from racing, though you do sit back down with your heart in your throat.

  
  


Kankri can be damned mean when he wants to be. You can hear him now – him cutting your knees out from under you with the Words he will have with you if you let Terezi bounce off of any surface softer than that of a fluffy bunny. He’s not even that protective of Karkat; you think it’s because he’s desperately clawing for Rosa’s respect.

  
  


Fuckin’ mommy issues. Goddamn.

  
  


None of them ‘win’ the race because they all cross the finish line at the same time. Dave and Karkat were holding both of Terezi’s hands as they ran. She was laughing like a hyena the entire go.

  
  


You’re proud of them. And of yourself, because you had the forethought to immortalize it all on video. You get so excited to send it to Kankri immediately that you accidentally send two in a row. You then turn off your phone and pretend like you didn’t just do that.

  
  


After that, the kids unexpectedly beg you to go home. It’s highly suspicious behavior, especially because it’s preceded by them having a great time, disappearing for about a minute, then running back with their rented skates in hand, hunted looks on their faces.

  
  


Despite your gentle prompting, nobody will tell you what’s wrong until you’ve herded them all back into the truck, an entire pickle in Terezi’s hand because she argued for a company halt on the way out and said she really wanted one. She crunches on it with an unaffected air.

  
  


As you’re gradually working yourself up into a panic, thinking of all the horrible things that could’ve happened to your kid(s?) while they were out of your sight, Dave leans over and mumbles, “None of the bathroom stalls had doors on them.”

  
  


Karkat nods frantically. “It’s a madhouse in there. There’s no rules or order. Kankri would have a cow.”

  
  


“He’d have a whole field.” Dave leans over and tries to nibble Terezi’s pickle, but she yanks it away without even looking. Dave bites into air.

  
  


“It’s pee or see pee,” Terezi proclaims, mouth full of green. “I bet that’s what middle school will be like. Mark my words; Meulin said bathrooms are like battle zones there.”

  
  


The three of them shudder with the abject horror of soon-to-be-preteens.

  
  


While trying not to laugh at them, you drive Terezi home first once you’ve confirmed that nobody left anything of importance at your house.

  
  


At Rosa’s place, her mom gives you some leftovers in those terribly thin Chinese takeaway containers and tells you to drive safely. And then she sends Kankri to get into your truck, because suddenly you’re driving him home, too.

  
  


He flashes at you a beatific smile that’s full of stuff, and things, and he gets in the front seat, immediately launching into this that and the other. Only half of it is directed back at Karkat. You force yourself to nod occasionally and give speech-like noises at what you assume are the right times.

  
  


You don’t get mad. You are only mildly inconvenienced. One does not cry like a child when plans randomly change with no warning.

  
  


Kankri may or may not try to invite you and Dave inside when you drop him and his little brother off, but you reject the summons as smoothly as possible and drive home slightly above the speed limit.

  
  


You check the mirror to look back at Dave only to find him rapidly getting closer from your perspective. You try not to jerk the wheel as he climbs into the front seat. You have not the presence of mind to scold him – he puts on his seat belt immediately, at the least.

  
  


The journey up the driveway is silent and quickly darkening. It’s a little disheartening how the thick of the woods swallows the sun so easily. There are only several points during the day when the house gets direct sunlight, should it be sunny at all, and sunset is not one of those times. The rolling hills in between and the myriad copse of trees and vegetation and unexplored caves ensure this.

  
  


In the city, you lived in one of the tallest buildings around. All you had to do to see the horizon and the sun was to go up to the roof, a practice that was not always safe, not necessarily due to the height but due to who could be waiting up there.

  
  


But Dad wasn’t always on the roof.

  
  


Your hands unwittingly tighten on the wheel to the point of brutish pain.

  
  


And now, Dad will never be up on the roof again.

  
  


“Bro.”

  
  


You startle from yourself. You had pulled up to the house a little too quickly, and the stop is less than elegant. You look over at Dave to make sure you didn’t give him whiplash or something.

  
  


He’s already looking at you. His shadows almost fit his head, now. “Can you come help me figure out the redstone? I can’t get it to work.”

  
  


You swallow back something that he doesn’t need to see. “Yea. I think I can do that.” As you unbuckle, you check the time. “But right after that, you’d better get to bed. Tomorrow’s Saturday – Kankri’s tomorrow.”

  
  


Dave doesn’t grumble about it because he’s a good kid who enjoys sleeping and spending days with his friends like a normal person should. He trails you inside, then slips past you to find his laptop.

  
  


You essentially sit back and watch him play Minecraft for a good half-hour while he completely diverts from what he claimed he wanted from you in order to show you everything he’s built. You make sure to tell him how impressive it is, and how smart and creative he is, even though coming from you it sounds blank and insincere every time. He gives you his shy smiles, though, so he must believe you. When he gets to the redstone, they all seem to be perfectly functional for the uses he requires of them.

  
  


Instead of embarrassing him by accusing him of being unable to outright ask you to pay attention to him, you give him a little lovin’ in the form of some hugs and tickles and then send him off to bed.

  
  


You sit on the couch in the living room in near-darkness and silence, the only noises coming from the muted sounds of Dave moving around upstairs and whatever creatures are in the woods. The cawing is distinct. You wonder if Dave still tries to tempt ‘Garfield’ the crow to his window with crumbs and treats.

  
  


A fissure of green interrupts your lazy couch musings, a rumbling hum erupting from what could otherwise be mistaken for a cloud of noxious poison gas. The red flecks which wax into full blood moons give him away as an extraordinary being.

  
  


Not for the first time, you wish you had some goddamned weed.

  
  


“I RECALL HOW TO SKATE.”

  
  


What a strange thing to open with. You humor him, as always. “That’s nice, Cal, but you don’t have feet anymore.”

  
  


He laughs his horrible laugh and a strange pressure brushes up against the side of your neck, crawling up your cheek not unlike a bug would. You don’t shiver. He laughs a lot these days. How worrying.

  
  


“I BET YOU WERE STIFFER. THAN A FROZEN RABBIT. ABOUT TO MEET ITS FATE. AT THE JAWS. OF A WOLF.”

  
  


You calmly stand up and begin dislodging the couch cushions from their places, grabbing the metal bar at the bottom that designates the end of the yet to be unfolded futon. “Lemme guess – you’re the wolf in this metaphor?”

  
  


Cal circles you as you throw the futon into place. “YOU KNOW ME SO WELL.”

  
  


The couch pillow becomes your single bed pillow with a quick flick of your hand. “I was told that I didn’t know you at all, actually.”

  
  


Before you can begin to think about extrapolating, a force shoves you from behind, and you go crashing face-first down onto the thin mattress, causing it to illicit a squeaky creaking noise that grates on your senses.

  
  


“Don’t throw me into bed unless you intend on ravishing me within and inch of my life,” you complain as you unstick your mouth from the plain white sheets. Dammit – there goes your Vaseline. You’ll have to put more on. You refuse to wake up with dry ass lips.

  
  


“RAVISHING? I THINK NOT.” A scoffing laugh that makes your ribcage feel funny and cavernous. “WITHIN AN INCH. OF YOUR LIFE? WAIT.”

  
  


“’Wait’.” Your question comes out flat and uninspired as you flop onto your back. Caliborn hovers near the ceiling, somewhere above you, and yet what seems like half of him lingers closer to the floor. It’s genuinely freaky as hell to look at, so you seek out his ‘eyes’ and you stay safely to the left of them. “If I don’t die sexy, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”

  
  


“INCORRIGIBLE.” Oddly, he doesn’t disappear in a huff as he tends to. His gaze is seething, as it always is without discrimination between what or who it apparently glares at, and it makes you duly uncomfortable. “DREAM OF SOMETHING SWEET, DIRK STRIDER. AND DO NOT BLAME ME. WHEN YOUR CASTLE WALLS. CRUMBLE.”

  
  


“Cryptic.” Contrary to your flippant remark, you attempt to deconstruct what the fuck Caliborn could possibly mean. “That’s really-” Unexpectedly, you fight against a jaw-cracking yawn. “What the fuck...”

  
  


“SWEET, SWEET DREAMS.” Caliborn’s parting croon at your rapidly dipping eyelids is nothing short of absolutely, pants-shittingly terrifying, as he does it while making direct eye contact. It stirs your insides into sickeningly feverish fear, your brain making the same bleating noises a lost lamb would, if only you had the energy to open your mouth and scream them out.

  
  


There’s something familiar about the soft way you get pulled down into unconsciousness. It sucks.

  
  


It really isn’t a surprise when you wake up at exactly sunrise, all sweaty and tangled in your sheets, your pillow somewhere halfway across the house, no memories of such ‘sweet dreams’ for you to recall.

  
  


Dave is already at the kitchen table horfing what appears to be his second helping of a sugary cereal you normally only let him have a very small bowl of once a week. He doesn’t appear concerned at your late rising.

  
  


You hasten to compose yourself, both for Dave’s sake and because you’re convinced that Kankri can sniff out emotional vulnerability like some kind of conversational blood hound.

* * *

Karkat has a birthday shindig come summer.

  
  


It’s a surprise. Karkat has never had much of a birthday anything, considering Dave and his other little friends are practically always around during summer break anyways. You just get him money, increasing the amount slightly as he ages; he’s not your kid and you don’t know what he likes, not really.

  
  


Kankri would swoop in and confiscate the money, placing it near instantaneously into a box labeled ‘Karkat’s Savings’, and now you feel obligated to keep putting funds into that little box. It seems as if your monetary gifts once a year are the only increase the box receives.

  
  


However, this year is a bit different, as Dave requested a smidge of the money you intended to give in order to buy a gift for Karkat himself. You gave it to him, and then he practically sprinted away. You have no idea what in the world he possibly bought.

  
  


On June 12th of 2023, Karkat’s ninth birthday, you’re in the middle of sending Dave to go brush his teeth and wash his hands before y’all leave when you’re interrupted by an oft-unheard chirp from your pocket.

  
  


It’s Kankri. He’s texting you. This is unprecedented, because Kankri enjoys speaking – at length – more than he enjoys the perilous wonders of life itself. The last time he texted you, it was on Halloween several years ago. You conclude that Kankri only texts when he thinks he’s got something to hide.

  
  


What a funny guy.

  
  


The text reads: CAN YOU PICK UP A FEW BAGS OF CHIPS ON YOUR WAY OVER PLEASE? I AM SORRY TO ASK YOU FOR THIS, I WILL PAY YOU BACK. THEY DO NOT HAVE TO BE NAME BRAND, IN FACT IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THEY ARE NOT.

  
  


You send him the thumbs-up emoji and nothing else. Dave is bum-rushing the door with slightly damp hands, and you don’t think yourself capable enough to wrangle more than perhaps half a person at once. Of course you pick Dave.

  
  


He waits in the truck playing his 3DS while you run into the nearest grocery to Kankri’s apartment to get some chips. You get a variety, even though you don’t think you’ve experienced a majority of the flavors you gather up. The store brand chips are both bigger and cheaper, so you get those. Whoever’s coming will probably be too young to know the difference in price tags.

  
  


As soon as you arrive, Kankri practically snatches you up with a firm grip on your inner elbow and a furtive whisper of, “Help me,” into your ear, of which he must stand on his tip-toes to reach. He spares a moment to cheerily greet Dave and squish him into a hug. Dave blushes, because that kid will blush if he thinks a bird has winked at him. He then scampers off to Karkat’s room without a backwards glance.

  
  


Heh; he’s embarrassed.

  
  


You don’t get much time to yourself to wallow in your own self-satisfaction at reading Dave’s emotions clearly and quickly because Kankri all but kidnaps you a few strides into the room to where the small kitchen is.

  
  


“This place is a mess...” Kankri mutters at seemingly no one but himself, because you sure as fuck aren’t gonna respond. He deposits you somewhere next to the sink, and then takes mantle up at the kitchen table, which is completely dominated with what seems like hundreds of two-liter bottles. “I’m so glad I called you in earlier than the other guests – you know I enjoy your company Dirk, but today I’m a bit tetchy, so you’ll hardly hear a peep out of me.”

  
  


“Okay.”

  
  


Kankri takes a bottle of off-brand dark cola, inserts a funnel into an empty bottle of name brand Coca Cola, and starts pouring one into the other.

  
  


“What are you doing.”

  
  


“Honestly, Dirk,” Replies Kankri with the countenance of a hunted man. You resist the urge to put your hands up and back away slowly, mostly because they’re both occupied by bags full of even more bags full of chips. “You can put those on the counter. I’ve already heated the hair iron to reseal them with, so just start ripping them open and I’ll be over there in a second.”

  
  


You look at the counter. In a neat pile is what appears to be a large amount of flattened, empty name-brand chip bags, like Lays and such.

  
  


“Kankri.” He glances up at you without ceasing his task. “Dude. Is it really that important that you do this?”

  
  


“_Yes.”_ He slaps down the empty bottle of off-brand cola, grandly capping the now full bottle of deceiving Coca Cola. _"Yes,_ Dirk, it is. Do you even comprehend how embarrassing it is to be the poorest member of the PTA? Are you capable of wrapping your mind around the loads upon loads of _crap,”_ he whispers the word, “that must be shoveled through with these people, simply so that I can give Karkat a glancing chance at a better life than the one he has now? Can you, Dirk!? Because it seems to me that you pride yourself on being a few _fucks_ short of the ones given by other people around you.”

  
  


Wow.

  
  


“...I was just asking. In case it was a situation in which I’d need to intervene.” You mentally roll your eyes at your own stilted phrasing. You don’t think yourself able to get through this situation without some form of self-deprecation, some way of bringing yourself low enough so that other people stand higher than you. It makes it less painful. “As like. A friend.”

  
  


Kankri’s previously irate expression crumples. “Oh, Dirk,” he breathes, dancing awkwardly around the table in order to come right up in front of you, much too close for an expression so remorseful. “I’m so sorry, I should not have said things like that. I insulted your intelligence and ability to emphasize, which was horribly ableist of me.”

  
  


Unwittingly, you think your face may flush. You don’t think you’re comfortable with other people pointing something out like that, much less Kankri. You have no idea how you get figured out so often, but you blame yourself for being a recognizable stereotype in the worst of ways.

  
  


“It’s cool,” you say, even though he’s taken to patting your cheek the same way he pats Karkat’s when his little brother is feeling upset, which makes you feel like a fucking child. So much for ‘I’m not ableist.’ “You’re stressed. I get it. It’s a big day. Lots can go wrong.” You timidly remove his hand without tossing it away like one of those spiderwebs you somehow walk into every other damned day. “But lots can also go right. It sounds dumb when I say it, but you should calm down. This is Karkat’s day, and I know he loves you. He’ll appreciate whatever you do for him, even if it’s this.” You motion slightly at the table of class warfare.

  
  


Kankri opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but then closes it on a wan smile. To your horror, his eyes look shiny and wet. “I have to make sure she knows that I’m doing good,” he confesses, and you immediately understand that by ‘she’ he means his mother. “She might not care to know. Not the way I want her to. But it matters, what she thinks. Even though I know I am a coward for never telling her.”

  
  


“Your situation is complicated.” You don’t know how else to describe it, but you want to say something compelling enough that Kankri will widen the distance and stop staring up at you like that, like you hold answers. “But I know you. I know you don’t make rash decisions. You’ll figure it out, even if it doesn’t happen right now.”

  
  


Kankri gives you another smile, only this time it seems genuine. “Let’s try drinking later, hm?” Well that’s out of left field. “You mentioned it once, and I’m pushing thirty at this point so I figured, why not. You won’t even have to spend the night if we simply be reserved in how drunk we get.”

  
  


He bumps you twice on the chest with his fist, which would be companionable if not for how he does it like one would knock on a door, and also how he reels back and gives you a startled, dawning look that clearly says ‘Why in God’s name are you built like a brick shithouse?’

  
  


You resist the urge to cover your titties, even though you’re pretty sure they’re called pecs, but for that moment of bodily vulnerability they feel like titties in need of covering.

  
  


Gamely, you help Kankri switch the packaging on the snacks and drinks well before any of the other guests get here. He even has time to put the homemade cake in the oven, which you’re somewhat stunned at.

  
  


“What?” He takes off his oven mitts, unaware of your awe. “It’s cheaper than buying one.”

  
  


“I usually just get Dave whatever he wants from the only bakery in town,” you say as a sort of back-handed way to compliment him. Kankri side-smiles at you.

  
  


The first to arrive, aside from Dave and yourself of course, is Terezi, her two sisters, and Rosa.

  
  


To your guilty relief, Kankri latches onto Rosa (in a much kinder way than he did to you, might you add) and allows you to finally be free.

  
  


Unfortunately, this freedom comes with a price. Namely, no matter where you go in the apartment, you have at least one child, sometimes even more, trying to use you like a jungle gym. You don’t know how to not have them do this.

  
  


Terezi’s foot neatly kicks you in the chin as she curls in your lap like a cat with its belly up. “Are you coming to my birthday party in October?”

  
  


Karkat, who is using your lifted arm like a like a chin-up bar, says, “Duh, of course I am. When have I ever not been there? Are you losing your mind along with your eyeballs?”

  
  


“Karkat!” Kankri hollers from the kitchen. “Don’t be ableist! Apologize.”

  
  


Karkat growls his apology like a tiger trapped in a small body that can hardly contain his true power.

  
  


Terezi cackles and runs her fingers up your shirt like a spider. You try not to whimper in fear or whine for help. “To answer your question: No. I am only losing my eyeballs.”

  
  


Dave, who clings to your back jetpack style and is also the only child you will ever fully tolerate, reaches out and puts another heart-shaped sticker onto your cheek. It itches.

  
  


“I’ll be there too, Terezi,” Dave says.

  
  


Kanaya, who sits next to you on the couch, quietly flips to another page in her book. “Terezi. Remember what Mom said – parties every year are expensive, a simple sleepover would be better.”

  
  


Terezi kicks out, nearly dislodging Dave from your back with the suddenness of it. Her foot hits the side of Kanaya’s head, smudging her white hijab around. “Oh _boo_ Kanaya, why don’t you go tell that to _Meulin_, she’s had a party basically every year of her _life.”_

  
  


Kanaya shoves her little sister’s foot away. “If you recall correctly, Meulin was the first member of Rosa’s family. Now, there are three of us to take care of. It isn’t easy or cheap.”

  
  


“Lick my foot.”

  
  


Kanaya makes a disgusted face and stands up, walking into the kitchen to go sit at the table instead.

  
  


Karkat drops from your arm onto the place Kanaya just vacated, which is great because he was getting pretty heavy and you were about to drop him yourself. “Wow. Terezi, did your mom bring your sisters because they wanted to be here, or-”

  
  


“No.” Terezi smiles with all of her teeth. “Meulin’s been in the bathroom for thirty minutes, and it has nothing to do with her period.”

  
  


Dave stops slapping stickers on your face long enough to go “ew” with emotion. You don’t know when he learned what a period is. “Yea, well, they’re older, so they like, don’t get it anymore. Now they’re all stupid and care about stupid stuff.” He tries to put a sticker on your eyelid, and you gently guide his hand away. He puts it on the tip of your nose instead.

  
  


Terezi suddenly reaches up and grasps at seemingly nothing before making contact with Karkat’s shoulder, which she then drags towards herself. Karkat yelps, his pointy party hat going flying as he collides right on top of Terezi’s body, which she uses like a bear trap and captures him with all of her limbs while he struggles and she cackles.

  
  


“Oops, sorry,” she giggles, “I meant to grab Dave.” She releases him, and he immediately careens the short distance to the floor.

  
  


When he sits up, he looks utterly betrayed. “Why would you wrestle with Dave but not me??? I’m the birthday boy and I- I am perfectly wrestle-able, I can tell you this.”

  
  


Terezi goes ‘aww’ and Karkat turns one whole shade of red. “Dave wouldn’t know how to hurt someone if he was given a baseball and told to throw it as hard as possible at the broad side of a barn. Also he’s small enough that I can toss him around and make myself look super strong.”

  
  


Karkat, who is admittedly a chubby child the more he grows, abruptly pales more than expected. He looks to your right, which is where you assume Dave is poking his head around yours to stare right back at Karkat.

  
  


“Yea,” Karkat mutters, which is still at a particularly loud volume, “small and harmless. Yup. That’s Dave.”

  
  


Terezi rolls herself off of your lap, landing sharply on her feet. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy in the birthday boy’s voice?”

  
  


Dave begins to climb down from your back, and you perhaps over-react by reaching around to pick him up and then place him down onto the floor. He flushes at the kiddie treatment, because he goes red at anything you swear, and you let go of him quickly in embarrassment. You then pretend to be a statue instead of a person who has ears and eyes.

  
  


“It _is_ his birthday,” Dave says compromisingly even as his friends size each other up, one with squinted eyes and one with a shark-toothed grin. “If anybody gets to pick what we do today, it’s him.”

  
  


Karkat announces that he wants to play Smash Bros. Melee on his brother’s now stupendously old Gamecube. There are four mismatched controllers, one of them not even of the Nintendo brand, which is the one you pick when the three rope you into a tournament with them.

  
  


A few other classmates and parents arrive, but it’s obvious to you that Karkat has his little group that he prefers even as he appears to get along with everyone that comes in the door, despite the huge contradiction of his loud and brash personality.

  
  


While nobody pays attention to you, and Meulin finally vacates the bathroom at the bait of foodsmells, you meticulously pull the stickers off of your face before you get a rash or something.

  
  


People are too busy complimenting Kankri’s homemade dishes, especially the cake, to become aware that their supposedly name brand sodas and chips may taste slightly different from normal. Kankri catches your eye in the middle of a conversation he’s having with an obviously middle class mom toting around a reasonably expensive purse who is begging him for his recipe. You tip your shades down to wink at him.

  
  


The guests all leave at a reasonable time in the evening. This includes Terezi’s family, even as she wheedles her mom to stay for just a bit longer. Rosa cites an eye appointment Terezi has the next morning, and then shoos her girls out the door.

  
  


Dave looks like the cat that’s got the cream when he realizes that y’all aren’t leaving like everyone else is, and he immediately busts out of his previously somewhat shy shell and steals Karkat’s coveted sparkly red birthday hat. Karkat screams and chases after him.

  
  


In the kitchen, Kankri stretches so hard that his back audibly cracks. He then gives you a sly look, popping the cork on a bottle of wine.

  
  


It’s show time.

* * *

Kankri is drunk as fuck.

  
  


“My friends’re all in another state because, ‘cause I up and moved so fast,” he practically sobs into your shoulder, which is now wet, a very spill-able glass of wine carelessly clutched in one hand. Several empty wine bottles along with a near-empty one sit on the kitchen table. “My friggin’ boyfriend left me with- without even breaking up with me first, and I can’t even tell my mom because she doesn’t know I’m related to her!”

  
  


You shush him ungently, one hand held over his mouth while you crane your head around to look into the living room.

  
  


Dave and Karkat are passed out on the pillows in front of the TV, a movie still playing despite it being practically muted. Karkat’s curled up into a ball, head resting on Dave’s stomach. Dave looks like a starfish, his mouth open with drool no doubt collecting in one corner.

  
  


Kankri shoves your hand away and clings to you, damn near fumbling his glass before you can catch it and slide it onto the table. Several drops of alcohol hit the wood.

  
  


He’s a lightweight and you hated the taste so much that you barely had any, meaning you are now the sober loser at a one-man party.

  
  


But damn if you don’t wish you’d just forced yourself to throw it back. At least if you were drunk too it would mean not having to be the sole person aware and in control here. The only adult.

  
  


He practically blows his nose into your tanktop sleeve, which means basically onto your skin. You cringe. He goes limp. Passed out?

  
  


For some reason, you wish Hal were here. You feel like he’d have a few poignant things to point out and at least five plans to suggest that would all sound a lot better than yours currently do.

  
  


You haul this drunk man you mistakenly called your friend into your arms and take him down the hallway to where you know Karkat’s room is not, the closet is not, and the bathroom is not. By process of elimination, you open the door to Kankri’s bedroom.

  
  


You’ve never been in here before. It didn’t seem right to ask for entrance, having the thoughts about him as you do. It’s too dark to see much of anything beyond an outline of the bed and side dresser, courtesy of the streetlamp outside.

  
  


As gently as you can manage, you plop Kankri onto his bed. When you back away, intent on at least getting him a trash can and a glass of water, his hand, which was previously resting peacefully on your lower arm, reaches out with a vice grip.

  
  


You make a squawking noise as you’re pulled down onto the bed with more force than you ever thought possible of Kankri, much less a drunk Kankri. You land somewhere next to him, but not so close that you’re impossibly close.

  
  


Surprisingly, he’s still awake, though dubiously. He sighs into your face his boozy breath, and you don’t make a disgusted noise and roll away because you are, upon occasion, an okay person.

  
  


“I didn’t develop an interest in theology and Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity, because of Mom,” he says tiredly, “I was already intending to study it before Karkat came along and… Dad died.”

  
  


You say nothing. You aren’t sure if speaking will harm or help.

  
  


“But now… It feels like a burden, like I’ve connected it to her and there’s no going back.” His hand paws at yours, and you give it up to him even though his is very sweaty and you don’t like it. “Every book I read, every lesson I learn, every time I pray to God in the privacy of my own head, I relate it back to my mother. I pray for Karkat, and for you, and my friends that I never see anymore, and I even pray for Cronus if I’m feeling particularly charitable.

  
  


“And yet… I never pray for my mother.” He sighs out something cumbersome, another breath of bitter air into your nostrils. His hand pets at yours, and for all that no other part of you is touching him, it feels overwhelming and invasive. “Because it feels like I am praying to her, sometimes. And that’s crazy. I never pray for her because, well because she wasn’t there!”

  
  


He’s crying again, though this time it’s silent and entirely pitiable instead of loud sobs. “She didn’t even know I existed! She still doesn’t – not the way I need her to. Eighteen years, I lived with Dad, content with what little knowledge I had of my other parent. They apparently met up one last time behind my back, and then nine months later, Karkat kills-”

  
  


He chokes. You stare at him.

  
  


“No,” he wheezes, “No, I shouldn’t… say that. It wasn’t Karkat’s fault this his birth caused Dad’s death. Birth mortality rates aren’t as great in first world countries as people think they are. It’s not Karkat’s fault that I’m tasked with raising him alone.”

  
  


Kankri’s eyes are dark and searching in his unlit bedroom. You wish you didn’t have to meet them. “Please don’t tell him I said that. Please.”

  
  


“I won’t.”

  
  


“You’re a good man, Dirk… A very good man.” Kankri sniffles and strokes broadly up and down your inner forearm all the way to your ticklish palm. Your body, resigned to its fate, cannot decide if this is comforting or not. You decide that it might be for Kankri moreso than you, and so you don’t move. “Can I ask you something?”

  
  


You nod, having no clue what this ‘something’ could be.

  
  


“It’s a terrible thing to ask,” he tells you seriously, “so please don’t hate me, but… Do you ever… resent him? Dave.”

  
  


“No,” you say immediately. Kankri draws his hand away from yours faster than you can blink, curling in on himself.

  
  


“Yes, yes of course, why would anyone resent their child?” Kankri barks a short laugh, face half-buried into his pillow. “Don’t listen to me, I’m- I’ve just gone a little crazy tonight I suppose, it, it must be the alcohol. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  
  


He hides his face fully within the pillow, his body an awkward line of tension, still fully dressed with his socked feet twisting into mussed sheets. He might be pretending to have fallen asleep, but you can see how his shoulders hitch every few moments, like he’s stifling his sadness.

  
  


You feel incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of leaving him drunk and wrecked like this. You figure you should at the very least make some kind of token effort to sober him up lest you take Dave and flee into the woods before you can convince yourself to be a ‘good Samaritan’ and spend the night with him.

  
  


However, as you lift yourself off of your side of the bed, Kankri’s baby bird cry of, “Don’t go...” reaches your ears.

  
  


Without your express permission, your mind compares him to Dave, and you sigh.

  
  


“I’m gonna help you get under the covers, okay,” you tell him, and then set about awkwardly helping him take off his pants and shirt.

  
  


As you’re folding him under his covers, you’re unexpectedly met with the sight of what you know to be a chest binder. You look away hastily despite there being nothing to see.

  
  


Kankri makes an unconvincing laughing noise. “It’s just a normal undershirt.”

  
  


“Okay.” You know it isn’t. Roxy used to wear one until their mom finally ponied up and paid for their top surgery. You make sure the covers are pulled up to his chin before you leave, even though it’s the middle of summer. “I’ll go get you a glass of water.”

  
  


On your way back with the water, you nudge Dave awake and tell him to get ready.

  
  


When you’re back in Kankri’s room, you convince him to sit up to chug at least half the glass before he crashes down onto his back and appears to be almost completely KO’d.

  
  


You abandon what’s left of the water to his side dresser and try to coax him awake for a bit longer. “I’ll be back,” you say, “I’m just gonna drop by the house then swing back around. I can’t leave you like this. Hope you have some spare blankets.”

  
  


Kankri only mumbles at you, so you give up and pull his door mostly closed as you retreat to the living room.

  
  


Both Dave and Karkat are awake now, and they stop whispering covertly to each other when you come into view. The old VCR is done playing, and the TV only lets out an eerie, piercing blue light.

  
  


“Can Karkat come?” Dave’s shades are held in his hands as he gives you his best pleading face. Karkat won’t meet your eyes. “He says it’s scary here at night. Sometimes the neighbors above start yelling and… Breaking stuff.”

  
  


Karkat’s party hat is askew on his head as he slowly looks around the room with bald apprehension in the way he holds his body. You try to see the apartment from his perspective, and find it shadowy without the larger-than-necessary presence of his older brother. You can see how he can become scared when seemingly alone, how a familiar place can suddenly appear foreign to a child’s eyes.

  
  


“Okay.” You drag all three pairs of shoes over and motion to put them on. “Karkat, your brother’s a little sick, so he’s asleep for the night. Let’s try to be quiet and not wake him.”

  
  


“Sick?” Karkat looks back at Kankri’s closed door, worry clear in his expression. “How sick?”

  
  


“Not badly,” you try to placate him, “he just needs some rest. He’ll be okay. But for now, you’ll come with me, and then we’ll be back to spend the night.”

  
  


At that, both of the boys perk up and begin re-tying their shoes double time.

  
  


You get Karkat to snitch to you where Kankri’s spare apartment key is (it’s taped behind a fake outlet plug outside, which is genius) and lock up. As predicted, the apartment up one level and one door to the left has its lights on. Two voices are raised from inside. Karkat huddles against Dave, who clings to your hip in turn.

  
  


“Bro?” You look down at Dave. “Can you carry me? Just this once. Please.”

  
  


You heft him into your arms without saying anything. You’re left staring down at Karkat, who looks wide-eye’d with something unreadable.

  
  


“You want up?” You ask him. Before you’re even done speaking, Karkat is nodding furiously.

  
  


You pick him up, too, and it’s a little harder considering your left arm is already occupied. Karkat is also quite a bit heavier than Dave, but you think you do a good job. You cart your child-shaped loot to the truck.

  
  


The drive home is dark and quiet. The boys doze in the back seat, though they occasionally wake up somewhat to chatter idly. Inside your mind, you absently wonder if Caliborn will be mad or simply playful when you get back hours later than you told him you would be. What he'll do when you leave again until tomorrow.

  
  


Your gut tells you the answer. You ignore it for now.

  
  


The twenty minute long driveway is creepiest at night. It’s nearly eleven, the boys are half-asleep despite being awake, and even you are feeling it. You haven’t pulled an all-nighter or even a midnighter for years now thanks to your ghost-sanctioned full night’s rests.

  
  


When you pull up to the house, your headlights unexpectedly die without you turning them off. In front of the house’s door, which sits wide open despite not being left that way, is Caliborn. This far away, he looks more like a colorful mirage than anything even glancingly solid or human-shaped. He disappears after only a few seconds.

  
  


Someone whimpers from the back seat, and you hope it’s Karkat and not Dave, because you don’t think you can deal with Dave being afraid of his own house tonight.

  
  


“C’mon,” you say, turning off the truck and opening your door like nothing’s wrong, “Cal is just… worried. We’re back pretty late. I’ll tell him what happened.”

  
  


That’s enough for Dave to pull a paled Karkat into the house. You flick on lights as you follow them upstairs, about ready to instruct Dave on what to pack, when your phone vibrates.

  
  


You excuse yourself and trot back downstairs. The screen says ‘KANKRI’ in big, accusing letters. You answer it with a growing sense of detachment.

  
  


“Where the _fuck_ are you,” he seethes, and you’re blown away with the vicious desperation of it coming from a man you left passed out cold and meek not but forty-five minutes ago, “where is Karkat. _Where is Karkat.”_

  
  


“He’s with me. We’re at my house. It’s okay- ”

  
  


“It’s _not_ okay! I’ve been trying to call you for fifteen minutes! Why was your phone off!?”

  
  


“My driveway doesn’t have connection.”

  
  


“Why did you take Karkat in the first place, Dirk? Do you think I’m _fucking_ incapable of taking care of him myself?”

  
  


“No, I- ” Caliborn hovers very close to you, a strange murmuring noise coming from him that sets your teeth on edge. The light overhead whines at a high pitch, and it makes your skin crawl. “You passed out. I was only going to take them with me and then come back with our stuff, to spend the night. I’m bringing all of us back, Karkat included. We just got here- “

  
  


Kankri curses brutally into the receiver, and you realize that he must still be drunk. “You had no right to take Karkat from me. Do you understand? Do you even know what I thought when I woke up and -” He makes a weak noise. “Do you know what I had to do just to keep Karkat? What I had to go through, all the God _damned_ hurdles I had to jump through, all the change I had to suffer just so that I could keep him? Huh!?”

  
  


The light overhead breaks with a whoosh of pressure. Caliborn pinches your right hip with invisible fire, and you crumple onto one knee, into the glass shards. Blood pools quickly as it pierces, and you tell yourself that it’s superficial.

  
  


“Probably not any worse than what I did.” It’s not the full story. But you say it anyways.

  
  


Kankri pauses all but his harsh breathing. You sweat through your clothes and you forget what it was like to not be in pain, your back bowing to Caliborn as he still holds you in his fire.

  
  


“What did you do?” You don’t answer. “Dirk? I want to know what you did.”

  
  


Your forehead touches the floor. Sweat drips down into your hair, and you forget how to breathe easy.

  
  


“Dirk? Tell me. Dirk?”

  
  


It’s hot and noisy and it hurts. Kankri is talking to you, so you keep the phone pressed to your ear, too close, but you don’t pay attention to what he’s saying.

  
  


You think you lose time. When you lift your head, it’s closer to twelve than eleven. Your hip no longer burns, and you don’t know where Caliborn is but he’s not cooking you alive anymore. Hopefully he’s had his fill.

  
  


When you groan as you sit up, knees aching and back stiff, Kankri makes a gasping noise, and you realize that he’s been connected and listening this entire time.

  
  


“Dirk? Are you okay?” You don’t get to answer before he’s talking again. “I’m so sorry – I shouldn’t have asked that. It was too personal. I apologize for any emotional harm that I’ve caused you.”

  
  


“Mm,” you hum. You are out of words, kneeling in your own drying blood, your poltergeist having shattered one of your lights for the first time in years now. He must really be pissed.

  
  


“...If you would,” Kankri begins slowly, “house Karkat tonight, for me. I’ve realized that I’m in no state to care for him. Your instinct to take him with you instead of leaving him alone here with me was correct, in retrospect. I’m sorry that I blew up at you. And that I caused you to...” He trails off.

  
  


_Dissociate,_ you think but don’t say, ashamed and unwilling to acknowledge it any deeper. You stand up despite your injuries and palm the broom in the kitchen with one unmotivated hand. “I’ve got him. Don’t worry. Just feel better.”

  
  


Kankri thanks you stiltedly, then hangs up.

  
  


Instead of immediately cleaning the glass shards, you fix your knees up with the first aid kit you keep in the kitchen and then make the arduous journey with them going upstairs. The lights is still on underneath Dave’s door. You knock briefly, then crack it open.

  
  


Dave and Karkat guiltily look at you from their position on the floor. Horseland dolls litter the baby pink rug that was actually once labeled as an extra large kitchen mat, but you’d tugged the tag off and put it in Dave’s room when he was six. One of the dolls is on what you can only assume is some kind of huge, fake bonfire while all of the other horsies circle the scene. Some of them have tiny sticks jabbed into their slightly open mouths.

  
  


You don’t comment on it. “Kankri’s pretty sick, so you’re staying here tonight,” you say to Karkat. “You’ve left some pajamas over here, and I know you two have shared a toothbrush before so don’t even lie.”

  
  


At least Karkat has the presence of mind to look a little bit cowed. Dave only stares at you head-on, because he fears no brother nor bug. “Can he sleep in my bed?”

  
  


“Yea.” You don’t have anywhere else for him to go, but you don’t mention that. “You will also sleep in your bed.”

  
  


“Can you sleep in here with us?”

  
  


That throws you off a bit. You scrub at the back of your head, something tired making its home in your bones. “Dunno yet. I’ve still gotta talk to Cal for a bit. Plus it’ll be a squeeze, between the three of us. Why don’t you get ready for bed and get all tucked in with Karkat, and I’ll see about it.”

  
  


Dave says, “Oh,” and then takes Karkat to the bathroom to brush their teeth. As you watch them go, you belatedly wonder what Dave got for Karkat’s birthday. It wasn’t unwrapped at the party.

  
  


Maybe he didn’t want anybody else to know what it is. You guess you’ll have to respect that.

  
  


You go back downstairs with zero energy to the action. You no longer allow yourself to leap from the second floor to the first, the crawling fear of leaving yourself so open for attack is now just another emotion you must push aside for Dave’s benefit, and you find that you hardly mind. You think with a passable amount of apprehension that you could convince yourself to do anything if only you put ‘For Dave’ in front of it.

  
  


When Caliborn does not seep out of the walls and rugby tackle you into submission, you busy yourself with sweeping up the shards. An odd sense of nostalgia overtakes you, and when Cal does appear, it’s to your sardonic half-smile.

  
  


“FEELING LUCKY?”

  
  


“What’ll you do,” you ask instead of acknowledging his greeting remark, “Don’t think I was so far gone I didn’t notice you grabbin’ at my hip like a handsy teen-aged boy on prom night. You even broke a light – that’s an old one for you.”

  
  


Caliborn sighs out his ghost particle breath like the heat of an oven at you. You set aside the broom and dump the glass shards into the trash.

  
  


“UNFORTUNATELY FOR YOU. YOU PUNISH YOURSELF SO EFFICIENTLY. WHAT ELSE. CAN I POSSIBLY OFFER YOU. TONIGHT.”

  
  


“A kiss before bed,” you cheese with as you circle the couch to go back towards the stairs, “that’d be hot. Literally.”

  
  


You didn’t bank on him not fleeing after that, especially since you so blatantly asked for a kiss. You were so sure that kissing is in Caliborn’s no-no zone.

  
  


And yet, he laughs at you. It’s unpleasant, as usual, and sinister. You are unexpectedly, wholeheartedly afraid.

  
  


His eyes are so red against the blue darkness.

  
  


“IF THAT IS YOUR WISH.”

  
  


You aren’t entirely sure what happens – one moment, you’re standing, the next, you’ve fallen lengthwise onto the couch, eyes still open when you sink down into starburst colors.

  
  


Another morning; you wake tangled in a sheet, sweating through damp clothes, something tossed somewhere else, and not a single memory of a dream for which to draw conclusions upon.

* * *

Finally, after years of agonizing over its potential disaster rate, the worst comes true.

  
  


Dave gets sick.

  
  


He’s got a fever. An upset stomach – he throws up once. You have to quickly search how to clean vomit from the floor. He’s coughing. Stuffed nose.

  
  


You text Kankri. He does the horrible thing and calls you even though you sound like a semi-sentient AI trying to communicate. Kankri says he’ll call Rosa. You wait an agonizing ten minutes, hand on Dave’s back while he leans over the toilet. Kankri calls you back and tells you that it sounds like the flu, or a strain of some kind of stomach virus.

  
  


“Flu shot.” You try to explain that Dave has had a flu shot, but can’t. It’s humiliating. You’re so fucking scared that it’s gone from workable to downright idiotic.

  
  


“Flu shot?” Kankri parrots back. “You want to get him a flu shot? It’s too late since he’s already got it, Rosa thinks, but -”

  
  


“No.”

  
  


“No?” Phone crackling static. Dave heaves once, snot dripping out of his nose. You shake. “You got Dave a flu shot before today?”

  
  


“Yes.”

  
  


“Okay.” You think you hear him shuffling through some papers, or maybe typing on a keyboard. “Okay. It says here that the flu shot is not one-hundred percent reliable, and one can still contract the flu.”

  
  


You sigh a lungful out, uncaring of the horrible sound it must make via the phone receiver. Dave gives out a pitiful whimper, so you get a wet cloth and wipe his face for him, holding up a few squares of toilet paper for him to blow his nose into.

  
  


“Symptoms usually resolve themselves within a week or two,” Kankri continues on a vein of information that you already know from obsessively looking it up yourself not but a minute ago, but you can’t stop him. “But if he gets an ear infection or pneumonia, you need to take him to the doctor.”

  
  


You won’t admit that it’s comforting, this illusion of having somebody else here with you who knows what to do.

  
  


You eventually tell him, “Thanks,” after what must’ve been a truly awkward length of silence.

  
  


He tells you to, “Call again soon.” Not ‘call me again if you need anything’ but ‘call soon.’ You don’t know how to coexist with such a bold-faced command, so you hang up.

  
  


You delicately carry a too-warm Dave to his bed, fashioning a metal bucket you were using to keep spare parts next to his head. You bodily scoot his desk so that it’s flush with his pipe headboard, thumping the table lamp onto the floor once its cord proves too short to reach that far. On the desk, you put a mug of ginger ale, a small plate of plain crackers, and a bottle of medicine that you thankfully bought long before Dave ever showed symptoms.

  
  


“I’m gonna give you some cough medicine, okay.” You get it ready, completely assured that Dave won’t say ‘no’ because surely even kids must know that medicine equals getting better, when Dave lets out a cry.

  
  


You nearly drop the bottle. Dave is outright sobbing, begging you not to make him take it. You stand up from the stool you’d dragged in and back away like a startled animal before you get control of yourself.

  
  


In the face of his untethered distress, you once more find yourself battling the urge to cover your ears and cower. It’s been such a long time since he’s cried so uncontrollably, practically screaming, that you don’t know whether you should remove yourself from him or smother him.

  
  


He reaches out, making the decision for you as he drags you closer with waning strength.

  
  


“Don’t make me take it please please I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll get over it on my own, I don’t need it, I don’t want it to- ” He gulps in breath and pales rapidly as if he’s going to hurl again, but all he does is give you this wide-eye’d stare which would be all rolling whites if it weren’t for the permanent blood stain. “I don’t want it to hurt, please don’t hurt me, please don’t -”

  
  


“I won’t hurt you, baby,” you beg him in turn, burying him close into your arms and chest as if you can crush the fear and sickness out of him, “I’d never hurt you. I don’t know what you need, baby, you’ve gotta tell me, I don’t- I’m so _lost_. I wanna help you but you’ve gotta trust me, but I can’t ask you to trust me because -”

  
  


_Because I’m me._

  
  


Surprisingly, Dave calms down some, still gulping breaths and shaking with snot and tears in abundance. “I trust you...” He mumbles, like it’s no big deal, or maybe like he’s only half-conscious.

  
  


Immediately afterwards, he shoves you away with more force that you thought him capable, and vomits bile and ginger ale into the bucket.

  
  


He seems to drop into sleep as soon as his stomach is empty once more, so you go downstairs to wash out his bucket using the hose in the front yard. You repeatedly defeat the urge that tells you to go back up and hover over his sleeping body, even with no task for which to give yourself. It is more logical to quickly clean the sickness up so that it does not permeate.

  
  


Back in the kitchen, you find yourself uneasily stagnating. You re-check your lineup of medicines, none of which are out of date and all of which were recommended on the multiple websites and forums you’d perused.

  
  


You agonize. You claw at your own insides with mental hands, wanting to break down and cry for answers, not unlike your little brother just did. Ask nobody and nothing _why?_ Why does Dave always become so tortured over things you do not understand? Why do his natural reactions blindside you, cause you to think up the very worst of things and situations? Is it because it’s true, what you create in your head? Or are you being facetious, self-obsessed, and unhelpful?

  
  


You collapse onto the couch and moan into your hands, which clutch at your face and dig nails into your scalp. The gut-wrenching sound Dave made still haunts your every thought, playing over and over in your head. The way he’d writhed away from you, grappling his bed sheets, every inch of him an inch of terror.

  
  


A traitorous part of you forces you to make another despondent, barely-human noise. You hardly notice the harsh rocking you engage in, dizzying yourself. You can’t stop.

  
  


The color green seeps into your peripherals not overtaken by the blackness of your crowded palms, making you realize that your eyes are wide open, unblinking. A blanket of heat sets into your skin, but your body doesn’t react with sweat because it’s too busy making you rob yourself of oxygen, too busy unsettling your stomach.

  
  


“WHAT IS WRONG?”

  
  


It takes you nearly a minute to respond. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” You genuinely cannot imagine Caliborn is asking for any good reason, much less asking because he actually cares to know. He must simply see you as something inconvenient which fogs up the air of his living room.

  
  


You pant for seemingly no reason, unable to stop rocking. You try to breathe normally, to sit still, even though you intimately understand that this will lead to failure and consequences.

  
  


“NO.” You startle vividly when he appears confrontingly in your face, his existence a set of interlocking objects of visible air in no identifiable state of matter, be it liquid, solid, or gas, and dead light. “TELL ME. I WILL LISTEN.”

  
  


He does not leave. He does not burn you, or yell at you to stop your retarded actions. You only debate it for a few minutes before you realize that that part of you is currently down for maintenance; you will receive no help here.

  
  


“I think...” You lick your lips, then bite them. “I dunno… I think, Dad gave Dave alcohol. In place of medicine. And it hurt him.” You close your eyes and take a breath that is nearly normal, almost unencumbered. “And he thinks I’m going to hurt him with my cough medicine. Because he doesn’t know any different.”

  
  


Caliborn makes that awful humming noise that always vibrates your rib cage and tickles your inner ear. You make an awful noise in turn, entirely out of your jurisdiction, and you’re immediately humiliated even though he doesn’t deign to acknowledge your current lack of control.

  
  


“HE IS AWAKE.” You plant your feet back onto the floor, unaware as to when you’d crunched up into a ball like that, ready to launch yourself upstairs. “WAIT.”

  
  


Foolishly, you stop and you wait.

  
  


“TAKE YOUR...” He makes a strange noise and gesture here that you cannot parse. “YOUR MILK OF MAGNESIA. AND YOUR FEVER REDUCER.”

  
  


You understand that he must mean the pepto bismal. You do so, one bottle in each hand. When you turn around, Cal appears to be gone. Or, as you discover when you quietly sprint back upstairs, he has simply moved to another room.

  
  


Caliborn hangs like a gallows victim over Dave’s bed. Dave, once again a contradiction, appears to be fine with this.

  
  


“GIVE HIM THE MILK OF MAGNESIA FIRST. SO THAT HE DOES NOT VOMIT THE PILL NEXT.”

  
  


This time, Dave opens his mouth readily for the supposedly cherry-flavored pink liquid, allowing you to deposit the medicine inside. You let him read the bottle while you prep the ibuprofen and the cough medicine. He doesn’t seem to be up for talking anymore with his sore throat, although he appears to be lucid and reasonably alert when Caliborn starts floating one of his horse dolls around the room, sharing with the ghost a small smile at the supernatural antics.

  
  


You watch all of this happen. You’re unsure how to feel. You are neither comforted nor scared of Caliborn’s presence around Dave in this moment.

  
  


Thirty minutes later and still no more stomach upsets, Caliborn instructs you to give Dave the pill and then the liquid. You offer to show Dave how harmless the medicine is by taking it first, but Dave surprises you by bravely snatching the spoonful from you and downing the whole thing.

  
  


His face afterwards is openly taken aback. “It didn’t burn...”

  
  


You bite your lip in an effort not to do something emotionally unstable, like scream or cry. “Yea. It’s not supposed to burn.”

  
  


You sit with Dave for hours yet, tending to his every need even as he goes to sleep. Caliborn does not demand gratitude nor favors, and fades without fanfare from the room after Dave is no longer awake to see him make Clover do loop-de-loops.

  
  


A few weeks later, Dave is bright eye’d and bushy-tailed once more, and is well enough to go to Terezi’s ninth birthday sleepover. It’s like the nightmare never happened at all, and you feel foolish about your over-reaction.

  
  


Kankri, like Caliborn, doesn’t mention your phone meltdown, although you’ll have to assume that it’s for very different reasons. He could, after all, be simply paying you back for the night of Karkat’s birthday.

  
  


That, or you’re out of excuses, and Kankri truly is your friend.

* * *

This year, Dave’s birthday is conveniently on a Sunday, which means no school in the way nor any meddling Vantas’. They go to church.

  
  


Hal’s present came in on Friday, and since the mail was labeled to Dave and not you, you graciously did not open it. Had Hal wanted to talk to you urgently via mail for whatever the reason, he would’ve sent it to you. Grudgingly, you trust him on this, at the very least.

  
  


However, you feel mighty stupid when Dave rips open his package from Hal, he himself already wearing the present you gave him – a thick knit pink sweater with ‘DAVE’ on the front in red lettering, his Celtic knot ring now threaded through a real silver chain on his neck – and unearths a smart phone.

  
  


Not like the imitation child’s phone that Karkat’s had for years now. An honest to god cell phone.

  
  


You’re gonna kill your twin.

  
  


You absentmindedly congratulate Dave and tell him to hold on to it while you take an important phone call before banishing yourself outside. It flurries slightly, like it did last year, as you break your own rule and call Hal’s number on your cell phone.

  
  


Hal answers almost immediately. “Hello, Dirk. Come to wish ourselves a happy twenty-fourth birthday? Nice to hear from you for the first time in, oh, five years? Though it really would be more satisfying if you’d say something in the first place. Come on. Don’t be shy.”

  
  


You take a deep breath and wonder why you ever let yourself get out of practice of the life skill you painfully developed known as ‘Talking To Hal.’

  
  


“Dave shouldn’t have a cell phone. It’s not safe. Take it back, or else.” It all comes out of you at something close to a growl, the kind ground out between your teeth that tends to end in a spot of violence no matter what.

  
  


“Why?” In one word, your brother has infuriated you beyond reason. “Do you think your house is wiretapped? People listening in on your calls? Recording your keystrokes?”

  
  


The, “He could be,” that comes out of your mouth sounds so childish all of a sudden that you nearly bite your own tongue.

  
  


“Oh, you sweet thing.” Hal’s laugh is tinny, and fake, and entirely at home while filtered through an electronic speaker. “You know that’s not true.”

  
  


You nurse your bitten tongue and struggle to say anything substantial.

  
  


“I bet you’d love some context for that,” Hal continues to bait you.

  
  


You say nothing. The woods you’re surrounded with are strangely silent compared to the sound of static and perfectly even breathing.

  
  


“But, do you think you deserve it?”

  
  


“Why wouldn’t I?” You think about sitting down on what you’ve colloquially begun to call Dave’s Bench, and then you don’t. “He’s our dad.”

  
  


“’Our dad’,” Hal scoffs, a mean thing, meaner still with what it’s paired with right after, “Cunt rarely ever spoke to me. Not when he had you around. Don’t fucking talk to me about ‘our’ dad. You wouldn’t like it. Trust me.”

  
  


“His attention was not an ideal.”

  
  


Hal’s answering sigh is all sickly-sweetness. “Nevertheless, would it calm you if I were to monitor it all for you? Just like I used to.” He says it like he’s trying to reason with some great beast, or an upset child. Your mouth pulls into a nasty grimace. “Or would you be too burdened to ask more of me than you already have.”

  
  


“I never asked you for that stuff,” you spit out. “You give, and then you’ll assume that I’ll give back later. I never agreed to anything.”

  
  


“And yet, you would not be where you are had I not stepped in.”

  
  


You have nothing to say to that except silent vertigo. You shut your eyes and ineffectively do not think.

  
  


“I built the phone myself,” says Hal. “He could not be more safe. As could you, Dirk.”

  
  


Your next breath is steadier than the last, but no less untruthful. “You should call more often. Dave’s never gonna forgive you for dropping him like that, no goodbye or nothin’, but he misses you.”

  
  


Hal chuckles. “Yes. He misses me. Alright – I’ll believe you.”

  
  


He hangs up on you without further ado, as if that entire conversation didn’t just happen. You force yourself to attribute it to some kind of power move of his as you go back inside.

  
  


Dave’s already halfway through setting up his phone, despite never having had one before (as far as you know.)

  
  


“Damn son,” you say, feeling more comfortable and finely tuned, “you got skills.”

  
  


He doesn’t need much help from you to set up the rest, although you do take it for a few moments just to become familiar with Hal’s modifications. It’s like a basic Android except a few stylish steps to the left. You are impressed – not that you’ll ever tell Hal that.

  
  


You put Dave’s new number in your phone and vice versa. You suggest that Dave use his first call or text on Hal, and then turn away to start making a late breakfast.

  
  


You’re surprised when your phone vibrates in your pocket. When you take it out, the screen says the call is from Dave. As a bonus, he’s texted you a heart emoji.

  
  


You turn around in a somewhat incredulous state to look at him. He’s grinning cheekily from his position on the floor, phone hovering next to his ear. You give him a smile back, unable to control yourself even if you tried.

  
  


When Dave does call Hal from his new phone, he unexpectedly does it while sitting in the kitchen. He puts it on speakerphone. Like he wants you to be there with him, hear what he and Hal say.

  
  


Feeling inordinately smug and appreciated, you listen to Dave chatter excitedly at Hal as you make him his favorite cinnamon apple pancakes.

* * *

It’s Christmas Eve. In only a few hours, it will be Christmas.

  
  


This year marks the first one where you’ll have a tree.

  
  


You and Dave have never ‘properly’ celebrated Christmas before. The blame on that falls to you, obviously, because you’d spent most of your life assuming that Christmas was for other people, and then when you got older and increasingly detached from the world, you and Hal both agreed that it was simply a corporate holiday intent on buying and selling. You thought you were better than Christmas, and thus, everybody else.

  
  


Dave’s changed that idea – you still think you’re right about Christmas being a day to celebrate capitalism more than family values or religion or such, but you’ve decided to at least try. In previous years, Christmas was mostly about Winter Break to Dave. You’d have a special meal and pay extra attention to Dave, but that was about it.

  
  


Today, however, you have a tree in the living room that Dave will wake up to. Underneath the tree is an unwrapped present. You never got into the whole ‘wrapping’ thing because you don’t particularly enjoy surprises and you can’t imagine it would make much of a difference. Waste of paper, it is.

  
  


But you digress – you found a vintage set of My Little Pony sheets on Etsy, purportedly ‘gently used’ but you ensured to wash them with care. It’ll match the baby blanket he keeps folded and hidden somewhere. Maybe you can convince him to put the blanket at the end of his bed, since it obviously means so much to him, but what he needs in order to feel safe and comfortable matters more.

  
  


You sigh out into the cold night, the Sittin’ Boulder under your butt uncomfortably chilly at this point, but you’re not ready to get up and go inside yet. It took you a few hours to sneak the tree in and string it up with the appropriately colorful lights. You even put candy canes on some of the branches. Now, however, you’re too wound up to guilelessly float to la-la-land, and so you sit in the stillness and look up at the stars.

  
  


A creeping feeling overcomes you, slow and steady, as if it’s approaching and is only now tripping your senses as it gets closer.

  
  


You try to tell yourself that any noises you may hear are the usual night animals in the woods, which are harmless and will ignore you if you ignore them, but tonight it doesn’t work. You feel exposed.

  
  


You feel observed.

  
  


No crows grate their cawing at you from treetops. No red-eye’d corvids with potentially dual loyalties bewitch your little brother at sunset. It’s long past their time to be active, and so your imagination is left to wonder and create only the most chilling of scenarios.

  
  


It could be deer traveling under the cover of night, you reason with yourself as you hear something shuffling. Or raccoons, or… Your mind fails to procure any other nocturnal animal behavior.

  
  


Something snaps, like a branch except very large. So like a trunk. That’s horrifying to realize, and your heart feels as frozen as the air you suck in by the overstretched lungful. You did not give yourself permission to breathe in such a way, and yet it happens with or without you.

  
  


You’re frozen like the prey you promised yourself you wouldn’t be. Your eyes are as wide as they’ll go, but there is only so much star and moonlight to see by, and it hardly stretches its fingers through the canopy of tall evergreens surrounding the treeline. You see nothing in the darkness, but you heard it. You _feel_ it.

  
  


Once upon a time, there were beings on this Earth that ancient humanity had a hard time explaining. Or surviving.

  
  


Your instincts rarely lie to you.

  
  


Your mouth is open slightly, as if your body gears you up for a scream without accessing your logical brain for input first.

  
  


_I am not a victim, _ you chant to yourself. _ I am not weak. I am not a slave to my fear –_

  
  


You see eyes. Several pairs stacked on on top of the other. They are not red. They are not familiar. They are not of the world that you know.

  
  


They all blink at once. They are looking at you.

  
  


You only realize how far gone you are when a little bit of pee tries to escape you.

  
  


“Cal- Caliborn,” you cry out weakly in pure fear, scrambling backwards onto your rock while going absolutely nowhere, “Caliborn. _Caliborn!”_

  
  


He that you call for appears in between you and what frightens you so much that you’ve become entirely useless. His green visage is of heat, but it startles you into a wakeful position with how human-like it forms itself as. You can pick out his shoulders connected to a neck, to arms, to a waist, to –

  
  


It doesn’t roar so much as it lets out a searching aura of pure malice to blanket the area, something that takes your brain stem and shakes it roughly, and you’re tripping over the boulder and scrambling back to the house’s front door before you even have the presence of mind to check and make sure you aren’t being followed.

  
  


Fear dogs your every step, but you pause once inside the doorway and leave it cracked open, one shaking hand on the jamb and the other pinned to the panel of the door as you peek outwards, insatiably and yet horribly giving in to the want to see more.

  
  


The door abruptly forces itself shut in your face, but it doesn’t slam so much as slowly, yet strongly lock shut.

  
  


You whip around when your instincts tell you to, and you are met with a weakly glowing pair of eyes in a malformed cloud of barely-there green.

  
  


“Caliborn...” You swallow dry bile, and nearly gag on it. “What was that?” You do not ask, ‘Are you okay?’

  
  


“INTRUDER.” It’s muffled, and clipped. You walk closer to him on unsteady legs, and the heat he exudes is hardly enough to warm your skin. “TERRORTORY. SAFE.”

  
  


He fades entirely. You’re left panting alone in the living room, juxtaposing tree twinkling merrily in the corner near the stairs, scared out of your mind and glancing at the windows and doors.

  
  


But there’s nothing. Caliborn got rid of it, whatever it was. You’re safe, he said. Safe.

  
  


You believe him. God help you, but you do.

  
  


With the fireplace no longer supernaturally lit, and you unwilling to go outside for the firewood which to normally burn it, you take a few candles up to Dave’s room and climb into bed with him. He hardly stirs, but sleepily clings to you for warmth once you get comfortable.

  
  


Dazedly, you hope he enjoys Christmas when he wakes up. He should, because you damn well nearly died for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for the chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE23hMLbHg4)   
[[CLICK HERE for fanart by revokedrights part 1]](https://revokedrights.tumblr.com/post/189214255163/okay-yall-even-if-you-arent-a-die-hard-dirkuu)   
[[CLICK HERE for fanart by revokedrights part 2]](https://revokedrights.tumblr.com/post/189225047713/part-two-of-me-drawing-art-for-this-fic-please)


	8. I Sleep With One Hand On My 45, The Other 'round My Baby's Waist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *HORROR, BODY HORROR, HALLUCINATIONS, DELUSIONS, intrusive thoughts, gore-like imagery, attempted possession, violence, injuries, snakes Snakes SNAKES!!, nudity, self-punishment, fear responses, survival flirting, ableism, Minecraft, passive aggressiveness, manipulation, kids cussing, implied injuries to a child, character implied to have severe brain trauma (Mituna), second-hand embarrassment, awkward and tense situations, cringe(tm)?, internalized toxic masculinity, internalized sexism, internalized ableism, meltdowns, selective mutism/nonverbal, mentioned dieting, unwanted physical affection, implied/referenced past child abuse, a potentially emotionally overwhelming amount of schmoop.

You wake up because Dave is hitting you in the face with Sprite.

  
  


He’s not doing it all that hard, but you still react instinctively by snatching the doll away and launching it across the room before your eyes have even opened.

  
  


Dave plops his elbows right onto your sternum, gazing down at you. “Bro. This house is so cold, my pee is going to freeze in my bladder.” He shifts a little bit, the telltale ‘gotta go’ dance. “Cal won’t come when I call for him.”

  
  


You blink blearily, slowly coming down to yourself in horrified fragments of memories. The way you sit up is too fast, too panicked, and does tangibly awful things to your stiff back. All Dave does is laxly slide down off of your chest, coming to rest on your lap.

  
  


The candles you brought up last night are now sad puddles of wax on Dave’s desk that beg to be scraped off. It’s cold enough that you can see your breath if you try hard enough.

  
  


“Buddy system today,” you tell him, “Don’t even give me that look, li’l man – I know it’s ‘in our own damn house’ but Cal’s sleeping.”

  
  


“Why?”

  
  


You wrap him up in his comforter and one of those old quilts. He squirms the entire time. “There was some big bad spookum outside last night. He had to fight ‘em off.”

  
  


Dave stops wiggling. You triumphantly shove a thick sock onto his foot. It has dancing giraffes on it. “A bigger spookum than our spookum?”

  
  


You nod solemnly.

  
  


His nostrils flare. “Damn.” He sticks his sockless leg out of bed, waggles it in a circle, then yanks it back in. _“Shoo’ wee. _Carry me to the bathroom.”

  
  


You carry him to the bathroom. Your toes are fucking freezing the entire way. Dave, of course, locks you out once you get there, so you’re free to embarrassingly hop-skip to your own room to get some better clothes on.

  
  


When you go to change into actual pants fit for the outdoors, which is bright white with a thick layer of snow, you belatedly become aware of an unknown minuscule wet spot staining the front of your underwear.

  
  


And then you remember that you got so scared last night that you literally pissed yourself at least a little bit, and you shuck everything off immediately. As if your entire wardrobe is now contaminated or something. You stand there like an idiot, shivering and naked, harshly interrogating yourself_ ‘are you _four_ or are you _twenty-four?’

  
  


Christ. What an adult you are. You’re glad that Caliborn was so focused and then incoherent last night – he surely would’ve commented on your behavior otherwise.

  
  


_Hoo hoo, hee hee,_ you mock yourself in his stead, _big bad swordsman, peed his pants at the first sign of his true retribution. _

  
  


“Maybe it runs in the family...” You mutter to yourself as you slowly hike a pair of thermal underpants up your legs, Dave’s habit long since rubbed off onto you, “Dave did it when he saw Cal… But Dave was four… Bet Hal’s never peed himself in fright… Bet Hal’s never seen a real ghost, either, tho’...”

  
  


You patiently wiggle into your thickest sweatpants. They’re coincidentally maroon, which is great, because today is Christmas.

  
  


As if summoned by holiday thought alone, Dave literally slams into your bedroom, door slapping against the far wall with a pitched _crack!_ that makes you think something must have broken. His face looks wild, near-incensed, but not scared or injured, which is the only reason why you allow yourself to fall right onto your ass. Yes. The only reason.

  
  


“You didn’t tell me we were do- gonna do Christmas this year!!” He yells.

  
  


You’re on the floor, shirt only halfway up your arms. You use it to cover your titties like you’re a dame in her dressing room. You blink at him in semi-shock.

  
  


“I didn’t wrap your present!” He turns right back around and runs down the hallway, blanket trailing him like a valiant cape before it gets snagged on your door jamb and falls off.

  
  


As you’re standing up, you hear his bedroom door shut loudly.

  
  


You put on the thermal undershirt. You’re pretty sure there isn’t even anything here to wrap gifts with, so you take your time. It’s not like you wrapped his – he must’ve seen the tree from the second floor landing and panicked, for some reason.

  
  


_Huh,_ you think as you walk down the hall to Dave’s closed room, _a gift. For me. He’s got a gift for me._

  
  


You do your utmost best not to act overly excited as you softly knock on Dave’s door. “Hey bud. You wanna come out. I didn’t wrap your present either, y’know -“

  
  


His door opens quickly.

  
  


You look at him. He looks at you. Behind his back is a poorly hidden canvas that you identify as a part of his birthday gift from Kankri and Karkat a few years ago, only this time there’s thick, bright colors painted onto it.

  
  


“Wait, show me yours first,” Dave demands of you, scooting out into the hallway in such a way that his back and thus painting are constantly hiding against the wall.

  
  


You oblige. Though you do take the time to say, “You had better not walk like that down the stairs.”

  
  


Dave turns around and walks down the stairs normally, putting the painting in front of his chest until he gets to the tree, where he unceremoniously plops it face-down underneath near to your gift.

  
  


His nose wrinkles. “Hey, you didn’t even wrap mine.” He looks up at you as if his entire panic was your fault.

  
  


You tell yourself not to be ashamed, and it mostly works because you’re too busy trying not to laugh at his face. “When have I ever wrapped any of your presents? I just hand them over like, here, this is yours now, have at it.”

  
  


Dave shrugs. You can’t tell if he’s disappointed or genuinely apathetic. “Karkat had me thinkin’ the big X-Mas had different rules or smth’. Sorry.”

  
  


“It’s okay.” Since it seems like he’s not going to do it himself, you bend down and retrieve his present. “Here: one unwrapped big X-Mas present, straight from Santa’s sleigh.”

  
  


“Now you know I don’t trust Santa like that,” Dave tells you seriously even as he sticks his paws all up in the sheets, which are in an unlabeled plastic cover with a zipper. “And wasn’t it you that tell- that told me not to talk to any white people if I was somewhere alone? I’m pretty sure Santa is white.”

  
  


You do laugh this time, an uneven thing that you try to stifle behind your palm. “I forgot I told you that. You were four – aren’t little kids supposed to forget stuff like that and make it easier on us as you grow older?”

  
  


Dave pauses in totally decimating the perfectly folded cover. “It’s hard for everyone, but I have a great memory.”

  
  


There’s a moment of cold silence wherein you can’t seem to grasp the feeling of before, when you found yourself experiencing uncontrollable happiness.

  
  


You merely watch as Dave has to crawl up under the tree in order to get back his painting, which he unthinkingly put in an inconvenient position. He carefully squeezes out, hair now littered with little pine needles. He hands you your painting. You take it. You look at it.

  
  


It’s of the trees at what appears to be sunset, going by the yellow in the sky above and the vibrant orange poking through slivers of where the trees deeply part. The trees themselves are a mixture of black and dark blue-green, their shadows spilling out onto the line of dulled brown grass and white-grey gravel.

  
  


It makes you realize that he must have painted this going by the view he has from his East-facing window, for if he’d painted it from his North-facing, there would be a much larger ratio of gravel to grass, and there would be a winding gap for the driveway to come through.

  
  


One part of the painting nudges you in the hindbrain. As you’re about to open your mouth to spill your praises like diamonds falling onto a glass table, you see them.

  
  


The eyes.

  
  


The eyes stacked on top of one another, a set of maybe eight or more, growing more indistinct as they fan out. Their near-neon yellow quality does not fit with the soft, sloping golds and pinks and oranges of the sunset that harmlessly pokes through the other pines. In this darkened corner of the page, down to the far left of what Dave’s window could view, is the something that was watching you last night.

  
  


The something that nearly defeated your big bad spook of the house.

  
  


You feel like an idiot for not even being aware of the possibility of entities other than Caliborn existing out here. “Some unexplained things have happened here,” Miss Maggie, the postal woman, once told you. Not like you believed her, so assured that what you knew, what you lived with, was unexplained enough.

  
  


“Dave.” You can’t see how Dave is taking your reaction because you can’t seem to look away from the gripping painting. “What is that. In the left corner.”

  
  


You think he shrugs. “Raccoons, I guess.” He puts his hand onto the top of the painting and gently forces you to put it down, to look at him. “What’s wrong? Do you not like it?”

  
  


“No, it’s not that- “

  
  


“’cause I mean I guess you might be kinda tired of the woods huh- “

  
  


“Dave, I swear it isn’t that- “

  
  


“Like, ‘whaaat, a painting of the woods? Damn son why don’t I just look out any of these fuckin’ windows’ huh? Like, maybe I shouldn’t have added the weird raccoon brigade that sometimes tries to get into the roof but Garfield chases them off- “

  
  


Wait, what?” “Dave, stop.”

  
  


Dave stops.

  
  


“What do you mean the raccoons try to get into the roof?” Your mind battles with logic and panic. Somehow, that panic does not win, for once. “And by Garfield, you mean Caliborn’s crow, right?”

  
  


He looks a little put out. “Garfield is Cal’s crow? Aw, man… I thought we had somethin’ special...”

  
  


You sigh deeply and close your eyes for a few moments. When you open them, Dave seems harried. Shit. “Dave, I’m not… Mad. And I love the painting. I love it so much I can hardly think of what to say right now. It’s just…” You sit down on the couch, still made up into a futon that was never slept on last night. He follows you. “I think I recognize those ‘raccoons’ you’ve drawn, and buddy… They are definitely not raccoons.”

  
  


Now he’s scared. And still cold, going by how he’s shivering. You take the time to stand up and yoink the blanket right out from under him. He rolls like a bug, but doesn’t seem to be surprised, and bundles up in the blanket with you.

  
  


“I didn’t lie,” you state first, “that Cal really is sleeping. But he’s asleep because he had to fight something off last night. It took a lot out of him. I was outside on the Sittin’ Boulder,” Dave giggles a little, “And I felt like I was being watched. I looked over into the woods, and those exact eyes,” you point at the darkest corner of his painting, “were getting a good peek in. Cal had to stop it from eating me.”

  
  


“_Eating_ you?” Shit; well, you’re the worst person ever. He looks terrified.

  
  


“I confess that I have no solid idea as to whether or not it was really planning to eat me,” you say delicately, “but that’s what my initial thought was. Y’know, when somethin’ big and mean comes outta the woods, bigger than me, and starts lookin’ at me like that.” You put up some pitiful jazz hands. “About to be devoured. Human logic.”

  
  


“Right yea okay. Strider dinner.” Dave snuggles closer to your side. Not for the first time, you liken him to a tiny furnace. You resist the very real urge to plop down with like ten more blankets and go back to sleep with him, ignoring the current peril you find yourself in.

  
  


“Maybe we can just like,” he reaches a hand for the painting still in your grasp, “cut that corner out?”

  
  


You whip it away so fast that the blanket dislodges. “No way, hombre, this is mine forever and ever and ever and ever-”

  
  


Dave’s grin is tiny and mischievous when he bodily launches himself at you, barely giving you any time to catch him with one arm, which he then hangs off of like he’s on a para-glider. He hardly weighs anything to you, so you spin him around in a circle, reveling in the awed _“whoooa”_ that comes out of him.

  
  


You make fake plane crashing noises when you deposit him onto the futon, giggling and breathless. You trap him under the blankets using your most advanced tucking-in technique, and then give him a kiss on the head when he pretends to play dead.

  
  


“I’m gonna go out to get some firewood,” you tell him as you light a few candles on the coffee table. Not because it’s dark – you saw it once on The Day After Tomorrow. “It shouldn’t take long – I left a big pile in the shed, but since this room is about to be the warmest in the house, you might as well get comfortable.”

  
  


You dutifully ferry his phone, his laptop, and the TV remote to him after warning him that the internet might be down from all the snow. He comes out from under his blankets long enough to give you an OK handsign.

  
  


You have some trouble simply opening the front door – apparently, before it snowed, it must’ve rained, because the hinges are frozen. It takes a bit of muscle, but you manage it, only to walk right into a near foot of snow that is rapidly being built upon with endless sheets of fat wet flakes.

  
  


Dave’s seen snow before. In fact, you calculate that Dave’s been snowed in for more winters in his life than he has not been snowed in for. It’s a calculation that makes you a mite happy; the longer you spend away from Texas, the more you hate the place in retrospect. The more you love anywhere but.

  
  


You successfully battle the snow and rummage through the shed, finding a few piles of old wood you’d chopped before your first winter here. With Caliborn out of commission for a yet to be determined amount of time, no one will be here to light the fire the supernatural way, so it looks like you’re doing it the natural way.

  
  


Although you initially weren’t looking for it, you can’t find the ax. Cal probably hid or destroyed it, convinced that somebody like you didn’t deserve access to it. With what you have done, you cannot disagree.

  
  


Armful of wood, you stare out between the brightly dusted trees that reach up into the grey sky.

  
  


That or The Raccoon Monster, as you’ve abruptly officially dubbed it, might’ve nabbed it one night while creeping outside the house. You’re plagued with the nonsensical image of a red-eye’d crow stealing the ax from a great, shuffling band of horrific raccoon mimics before flying off and putting the ax somewhere its human owner will never find it.

  
  


Before you fully catch yourself, you scan the skies for an ax-wielding, ghost-overshadowed crow.

  
  


...Maybe you should get inside.

* * *

For three nights you and Dave squeeze together on the living room futon.

  
  


The days of being snowed in are fun, you suppose, though it’s telling how much the missing third member puts a literal damper on things. Your natural fires made with wood and yellow flames simply aren’t as warm as a poltergeist’s supernatural flames that burn an exceedingly hot blue and magically heat both the downstairs and the upstairs. You’re uncertain as to whether Dave’s occasionally dipped mood and refusal to go outside for longer than a few minutes even in broad daylight are due to Caliborn or because he now feels unsafe.

  
  


You wash dishes in water that chilled too quickly and think, _perhaps both._

  
  


You don’t know why you expected otherwise, but you sleep well. Not supernaturally well, but simply good enough. You mostly attribute it to Dave snuggling up with you. On the second night, you think you may even have a normal dream that isn’t necessarily worth remembering, but is able to be remembered all the same.

  
  


It’s an accomplishment that feels disorienting.

  
  


You try to convince Kankri over text to add Dave’s number to Karkat’s not-phone, but Kankri continues to be on the fence even with the incentive of a snow-in. He doesn’t budge until Dave unexpectedly asks to have a try. You give him Kankri’s number. He disappears with his phone for nearly an hour, then comes back already calling Karkat.

  
  


“Don’t even doubt me,” he says as he presses the speakerphone button as soon as his friend answers, then proceeds to fall asleep while listening to Karkat detail all of the ‘flavors’ of nail polish Terezi has tasted this year.

  
  


You have no idea what Dave and Kankri discussed. Kankri doesn’t bring it up again. You’re somewhat afraid to ask.

* * *

It’s before sunrise on the fourth morning when Caliborn reappears.

  
  


You’re coming out of the bathroom when something makes you instinctively turn suddenly, looking down the hallway towards where Dave’s bedroom is.

  
  


Moonbeams shed light from the round, stained glass window at the end of the hallway, causing them to create a dreamy blue and pink cosmos on the scuffed wood floors below. You hardly ever pay any attention to that window unless you’re cleaning cobwebs out of it, but right now it acts as the backdrop for an unexpected reunion.

  
  


Your first coherent thought beyond the initial fear is, _he looks strange._ And then your mind grasps that thought by the hand and runs away with it, dragging you along for the ride.

  
  


He’s turned away from you. You don’t know how you can tell this until you _do_ know how you can tell this – you can see a shoulder. Or what you think is a shoulder. He does not hover indiscriminately, splots of green trailing behind what could only arguably be called the focal point of his red eyes, so much as he stands._ Stands._ He’s got no damn legs, and yet without a doubt, your mind connects the dots and tells you that Caliborn is standing at the end of the hallway.

  
  


The moonbeams do not rove across the not-skin of his shoulder, nor do they fragment the light of him and spill it across what is already created in colors from the stained glass.

  
  


This snaps you out of it. Reminds you that this is not a person, not a man, but an entity. Given, one that apparently took the equivalent of supernatural sucker-punch for you a few nights ago, but…

  
  


But… You don’t know.

  
  


You wish you’d stop making things so difficult.

  
  


“Caliborn.”

  
  


He turns, like he’s only now noticed you, which you don’t believe for a second. As if to solidify your reasoning, he disappears without giving you the chance to hide the action with a blink.

  
  


You try to find him by walking slowly back towards the stairs. You’re outside your bedroom when a shimmering blanket of heat finds you and stops you in your tracks. You shiver bodily at the contrast between temperatures.

  
  


“MISSED YOUR FIRE. HAVE YOU?”

  
  


“I think I did alright without you.” You peer over the railing at the futon. Dave is still as you left him – asleep in front of the fire, totally starfished now that he has nobody to cling to, mouth half-open and drooling.

  
  


“SUCH CLAIMS.”

  
  


You follow his echoing voice into your room, where green suffuses into every nook and cranny. The closest comparison you can make is blacklight. It feels even more unreal, like you’ve stepped right onto a highly modified movie set. Your room, but two steps to the left and down a few towards hell.

  
  


You do your best not to be disappointed when you find him in a blobular state, bits and pieces of him making rainclouds out of noxious green that float about the room without purpose. His eyes are directly across from Dave’s painting, which you’ve hung above your desk.

  
  


He’s practically transparent, and you doubt whether you know for sure if he’s looking at the painting or at you from the way his eyes drift between green like they have no grounding.

  
  


“What was that?” You don’t point at the left corner of the painting where the yellow eyes sit because you find that to be childish – the occupants of this room don’t need reminding. “Dave said he saw it outside his window. Said that your crow warded it off.”

  
  


“MY CROW?” For a flash of a moment, you feel panic – if it’s not Caliborn’s crow, then whose is it? – before Caliborn’s laugh folds down over you like radioactive fallout of several tons, and your panic becomes unwarranted. “I SEE. IN MY ABSENCE. YOU MUST NOT HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT. ALL THAT HARD.”

  
  


“In all the relationships I’ve been in,” there was only one, “I’ve never been insinuated to be the stupid one so many times. Technically, I tend to be regarded as a genius.” One who is not inclined to admit his inexperience.

  
  


“A STUPID ONE.” Caliborn’s existence begin to use you as their center, circling you at inelegant speeds, like a racing horse got turned into dust and yet its back still fought to catch up with its front, until it all becomes a rotation of confused deconstruction of what the horse was shaped like in the first place. “DID YOU MISS ME? IDIOT BOY.”

  
  


“So am I not good enough for Little Boy anymore?” That’s a really dumb question to ask, even for you who is doing your best to obnoxiously flirt while sweating through thick flannel pants in a room absolutely overrun with green. “And here I was worried about what we’d do when I hit thirty. Would I graduate to Medium Boy?”

  
  


“DO NOT FRET.” A hot hand chases your hip and you jerk forward on instinct, as if you can escape anywhere while completely surrounded. “YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A YOUNG. STUPID. BOY. TO ME. YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF CATCHING UP.”

  
  


You brace yourself for pain, for losing all common sense on the floor, but it doesn’t come. You unscrew your expression, unaware that you had stopped seeing. Caliborn gazes down at you with eyes you can never seem to read.

  
  


“Cool.” You do, finally, give in and point at the painting, because you’re starting to feel at least 75% out of your depth, and your only option is to deflect. “Raccoon Monster. Tell me about it.”

  
  


“WHAT?” His eyes do something really esoteric and dizzying so you look away, but you’re pretty sure that he’s swiveled a part of himself that otherwise seems un-swivel-able and is looking at the painting. “THAT WAS NOT A RACCOON. YOU ARE MORE DELUSIONAL THAT I FIRST THOUGHT.”

  
  


“Wow. No, I...” You rub at your eyes. “Dave said he thought it was a bunch of raccoons stacked on top of each other, trying to reach the roof. I started calling it The Raccoon Monster. I dunno.”

  
  


Caliborn doesn’t say anything. You can feel him looking at you, and you understand that it isn’t entirely different from how it felt to be observed by something unknown, so you don’t blame yourself too harshly when you look down. When you aren’t strong enough.

  
  


You sweat. Is it just you, or is his circle of green stuff starting to enclose, tightening around you? Your heels feel singed, and you scoot forward reluctantly in response.

  
  


His rumbling, inhuman coo of false comfort sours the sweltering air. In tandem, he gets a hold of your right hip, and a small part of your skin you now know most intimately burns somewhere in the middle, somewhere close enough to hell that it persuades you to fight back, but also low enough that another part of you tells you that you’re over-reacting. That you can break through this if only you show some perseverance.

  
  


So caught up are you in the pain, you hardly register the snakes.

  
  


The _snakes._

  
  


You look down. There _are no snakes_ but you can feel them, feel them on your wrists, trying to slide into your open giving veins- no, somewhere in your gut, your intestines writhe. How did the snakes get inside? But there _are no snakes._

  
  


If seeing is believing, then what is feeling?

  
  


The worst part is that it doesn’t hurt as much as it could, and you know this. You can’t drift away from this.

  
  


Caliborn pulls you down in a way you’ve only felt when he’s trying to knock you out for the night, face first to the pillow that isn’t here to catch you right now. You come back to life even as your eyes droop, and say with aimless desperation, “Wait, _wait -”_

  
  


“SEE THIS.” Unwittingly, your eyes pop open, if only for a drowsy moment. He’s close enough that all you see of him, for once, is red. “FEEL THIS.” Something warm and blunt pierces the outside softness of your brain. It fills you up with numb, sticky cotton candy until you’re nothing but a body without a thought. “LET ME IN, DIRK.”

  
  


What you breathe in is scalding. Like hot milk, it sinks into your stomach and drags you down into your dreams.

* * *

You wake up alone on the futon, still feeling as if you’re in a dream.

  
  


The sun seems to be higher in the sky than your typical wake time of sunrise. In the kitchen, Dave is eating cereal and listening to an audio book. The hearth is full of ash, and yet it continues to burn a bright blue.

  
  


When Dave looks over his shoulder to see that you’re confusedly sitting up, staring at the fire, he shuts off the book and says, “Cal’s back.”

  
  


At first, to your horror, you think that he’s referring to the obviousness of your deep, unwakeing sleep. But then you settle for the far more logical option of Dave referring to how warm the house is.

  
  


“Eyup.” You slowly stand up and stretch. None of the strange body feelings from last night have followed you into the morning. It makes your mind doubt that it ever happened at all. Besides, when has Cal ever had enough power to harmlessly carry you all the way down the stairs and into bed? Much less in a way that does not disturb Dave nor damage you.

  
  


Despite any logic you may summon, you cannot banish the memory of snakes. Snakes around you, snakes inside of you, replacing your organs –

  
  


You think you should go do something else, something that isn’t standing around staring at nothing.

  
  


“He said that The Raccoon Monster won’t come back around because he scared it off,” Dave continues. “So that means we don’t have any excuse not to build Snowman Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr today.”

  
  


Ah, yes. The Snowman, since graduated to several juniors added in order to span the years you’ve consistently built Snowman’s elongating line of shittily constructed children.

  
  


“Did he call it that?” You re-make the futon into a couch. “He call it The Raccoon Monster?”

  
  


Dave smiles in a self-satisfied way, a driplet of milk on his chin. “Yea, he called it that.”

  
  


You snort. It’s a little less funny when a spoon comes flying at your head from places unseen. You catch it, but it’s uncomfortably hot, so you drop it into the sink and massage your fingertips.

  
  


“As if I’d forget about Snowman Junior times five.” You lean against the table and watch Dave’s milk turn from white to artificial pink. “Is that your first bowl or your second.”

  
  


Dave stops sipping on his cereal-less milk and hunches over. “Cal said I could.” You stare at him. He shrinks more. “You were asleep. Asleep people don’t get to make the rules.”

  
  


You give him an incredulous expression that conveys ‘did you seriously just say that to me?’ He makes an uncomfortable humming noise and goes “sorry” real quiet.

  
  


“Man, I’m not mad,” you tell him, moving away from the table with your hands up, “but if you get a cavity from all the sugar you’re horfing when I’m asleep, the only person at fault will be you. Then you’re gonna have to go to the dentist every day.”

  
  


Dave’s face scrunches up like a frustrated kitten’s. “We can’t afford that! Don’t even lie.”

  
  


If Kankri were here, and Karkat had said something like that, he’d get mad. But he’s not here, and Dave said it, so you break down and laugh at him.

  
  


And then you bundle him up in his puffy mint-colored marshmallow coat and take him outside. You steal his waterproof mittens and put them on, rolling the biggest part of the snowman for him before giving them back so that he can do the rest the way he wants. They barely fit, but you’ll sacrifice a bit of comfort and dignity to avoid frostbite any day.

  
  


Caliborn doesn’t haunt you while out here, either because the cold drains him or because he’s being courteous enough not to float around and turn it all into simple groundwater. Tellingly, at least a foot in every direction of the house is a No-Snow Zone, all of it melting before it has the chance to freeze.

  
  


At least now you won’t have problems with the hinges on the front door freezing it shut, you consider, right as a snowball hits you smack dab on the side of the head.

  
  


It burns cold. You look over at Dave. He turns tail and tries to run away scream-laughing. You chase after him and catch him, your legs much longer and better at running in thick snow.

  
  


While you ineffectively attempt to tickle him though his thick winter clothes, a horrible not-laugh sounds from somewhere nearby.

  
  


Wuh-oh.

  
  


A force shoves you from behind, and you both go down face-first. You luckily don’t crush Dave, but you can tell that he’s about had enough of this cold white bullshit because his response is to quietly sit up and squint at the sky, face completely red and covered in bits of snow. You fish his sunglasses out of their frozen prison and hand them back to him.

  
  


“You done for today?” You wave a hand at the sloppily made Snowman Junior times five. It’s his best design yet – its face is a Picasso Meets Lisa Frank disaster, utilizing preserved autumn leaves and random bits of brightly colored plastic from the recycling bin. You remind yourself to get a pic before it melts.

  
  


Dave nods at you. “He’s not exactly gonna get a carrot nose or eyes made of coal because we literally don’t have any so, yeah.”

  
  


“Then our mission is complete. Long live the prestigious line of Snowman.”

  
  


You take Dave inside and get him put into drier clothes. He talks to Karkat on his phone while you stir chocolate powder into cold milk. When you turn away to throw the empty packets into recycling, a hot breath fans over the back of your neck.

  
  


You startle as if you haven’t been used to Caliborn’s creepy taunts for years now. You blame it on the three days of cold. You avoid thinking about last night.

  
  


You put your hands around the outside of the mugs, ready to microwave them, when you realize that they’re already hot. Steam rises from each.

  
  


Involuntarily, you mumble, “Well I’ll be damned...” And proceed to have no other concrete thoughts on the matter. It’s not like you’re going to thank Caliborn for saving you a few minutes of microwaving or whatever.

  
  


You ferry the mugs to the living room couch in time to hear Karkat’s tinny, overexcited voice proclaim, “And the turtles didn’t escape!”

  
  


Dave accepts and blows on his hot chocolate. “Why.”

  
  


“Because the fence was two feet high.”

  
  


You drink burns your lip and tongue, but you sip it anyways.

* * *

“I wish Karkat had Minecraft,” Dave tells you one early Spring day when he gets into the truck after school, “Then we could play online together.”

  
  


You don’t know what to say in response. You don’t let Dave have free run of the internet because you don’t trust other people. He knows that he’s allowed to play in private servers with his friends, but unfortunately for him, his friends either don’t have the game or, in Terezi’s case, aren’t able to play it.

  
  


It doesn’t seem to matter what you could say, anyways, because Dave ducks his head and begins texting someone. Likely either Hal, Terezi, or Karkat. You don’t think he has Sollux’s number.

  
  


With the way his phone chirps in a specific tune as he receives a response, you’re 90% sure that it’s Hal, because only Hal would program something like that into a phone he made himself.

  
  


Dave perks up. “Hal says that I can play with him online if I want to.”

  
  


You’re not normally inclined to look away from the road while driving, but with the way Dave drills holes in the side of your head with his child stare, it’s hard to resist a peek.

  
  


His face is the equivalent of a dog begging for treats.

  
  


You don’t understand why he’s looking at you like that, like he’s asking for permission on a concept you’ve already given the A-Okay to, but then again, you also do understand. Dave’s not a stupid kid – if anyone would be able to tell that tensions are high between you and your twin, it would be Dave.

  
  


“Yea,” you eventually concede, even though you wish you’d have more time to think it through. “Sounds like a fun idea. Tell him we’ll be home in about twenty minutes, give or take.”

  
  


He gives you that small, shy smile, and abruptly you’re swept away with the reminder of how it didn’t start with him, and you didn’t do it for him, but you’d do it all over again for him. Not yourself, but for him. For Dave.

  
  


You nearly swerve off the road because you were stupidly caught up in looking away. Thankfully, Dave doesn’t seem to notice your lapse, already texting Hal.

  
  


You tighten your grip on the steering wheel and bite the inside of your mouth as a form of self-reprimand. You have got to do better. No more getting stuck in the past when the present and future are right here, in his truck.

  
  


Barely waiting until you’ve properly parked, Dave throws himself out of the truck and into the house, flinging his jacket off along with his school bag. You follow at a more lackadaisical pace, picking up Dave’s detritus as he excitedly sets up his laptop and connects it to the TV screen for a bigger view.

  
  


Huh. He only does that when he wants you to be in here and either play with him or watch him play. Quietly, you gather your latest knitting project, sitting down next to him on the couch. He throws you a wide smile that basically nails you right in the heart, and then totally subverts that by connecting to Hal.

  
  


You hear his voice as he does a mic check, a near copy of your own if not for how it lilts and actually uses inflection, fake or real. You take out your needles and your thread and you don’t break them.

  
  


“Hiiiiiiii Daaaaaaave.”

  
  


Dave reaches over and grabs at your knee, shaking it, looking like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. “Hal!”

  
  


They set up a private server. Dave eagerly tells Hal that he knows how to use redstone. You’re ready to, at any second, throw down for Dave, but Hal is surprisingly adept in speaking with him. It’s not at all like how Hal treated you when you were Dave’s age, but then again, you don’t think you’d expect him to act like that as an adult, anyways. You settle down.

  
  


You don’t quite phase out, still looking up every few minutes in order to demonstrate to Dave that you can multitask and that you’re paying attention, but it’s something of a startle to your system when you hear Hal say, “Where is Dirk?”

  
  


Dave pushes a few more buttons on his connected PS4 controller, the same one that was once castoff from the console Caliborn broke when you first got here. “Bro’s right here with me.”

  
  


“Is he?” Hal, don’t you fucking dare. “Say hi, ‘bro.’”

  
  


You feel Dave looking at you. You eke out a, “...Hi.”

  
  


There’s a few seconds of silence from Hal’s end. “That’s all I get?”

  
  


You do you best to convey via twin telepathy that Hal is making Dave uncomfortable. You’re 99% sure that it doesn’t work.

  
  


“Bro doesn’t like to talk,” says Dave, who is a literal angel right now. On the screen, his character punches a flower, and then carries it with him for seemingly no purpose.

  
  


“Yes, you’re right, Dave,” says Hal, “I’d almost forgotten – it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. Thank you for reminding me.”

  
  


Dave gives you a self-congratulatory head wobble and then leans over, away from what he must think is his laptop’s maximum recording range. “Why does Hal act so weird?”

  
  


From the tiny noise on the other end, Hal must hear this even with Dave trying so hard to be quiet.

  
  


You think carefully about what to say. You can’t help the smirk you erupt into. “It’s ‘cause he’s the middle child.”

  
  


An offended scoff. “I am _not -”_

  
  


“I’m three minutes older,” you tell Dave factually. You weren’t smug about being ‘the big brother’ until this very moment.

  
  


“That is a discrepancy.” Hal’s character apparently swims in lava and dies. It’s highly entertaining. “The nurses simply grabbed your big fat head before they did mine.”

  
  


“Does that mean I’m the youngest?” Asks Dave.

  
  


“Yup,” you say, reaching over to pet through the hair he doesn’t want you to brush for him anymore, “Since there’s no parents involved, I guess that means I’m the mama.”

  
  


Dave goes, “Gross.”

  
  


Hal physically says the word, “LMAO.” Before you can stop yourself, you gesture at the screen with great emotion as if he can see you.

  
  


Dave laughs at you both, and then plants himself a flower garden outside the pen he keeps all of his sheep in.

* * *

Karkat’s tenth birthday, June twelfth of 2025, goes off without a hitch. Kankri’s really upped his game this year, because all of the kids go home with a little baggie of cheap goodies that will be “used to annoy their parents for the next short while before likely being forgotten at the bottom of an overstuffed toybox.” His vindictive words, not yours.

  
  


Once again, you donate money to Karkat’s small savings box, and give some of that money beforehand to Dave, who buys Karkat a present that nobody else ever gets to see. You still wonder what it is, but you stay wondering – it is their secret to keep as friends. You won’t go ruining it.

  
  


You find yourself being the driver for quite a few adventures these days. Dave and Karkat most often, though Terezi tends to come along, and sometimes Kankri when his schedule allows it. You take kids on hikes through the local park, to the skating rink they refuse to use the bathrooms at, and to the grocery for an icecream run on an otherwise boring summer day.

  
  


You take Kankri to the post office or to Rosa’s house, when it’s just you two. One time, you even drive Rosa, Kankri, and a crying Kanaya to the Emergency Room, temporarily leaving Dave, Karkat, and Terezi in a guilty-looking sixteen-year-old Meulin’s care, but the less said about that, the better.

  
  


Gas money isn’t consistently offered, but is always appreciated. You think you might’ve gotten stuck in this role all the way back when you’d caved and let yourself get pushed into chaperoning an uncomfortable field trip. You’ll admit to not totally hating it – it makes the days more interesting, you suppose.

  
  


Today, you’re taking the usual – Dave, Karkat, Terezi – to Sollux’s house. You’ve never been there before, so you have the tallest kid (Terezi) sit up front and hold the phone for you while you look over at the GPS map. In the backseat, Dave and Karkat compare limb sizes and leg hair length. They declare that their hands and feet are the same size, but that Karkat has longer leg hair. You let this information glide over your brain and try to forget it.

  
  


Kids are weird.

  
  


You end up in a suburb with reasonably sized houses, the occasional speed bump, and manicured lawns. You feel out of place, but try not to show it for the sake of the kids.

  
  


Terezi retreats into the back to find her bag. Almost immediately, Dave climbs up front as if y’all aren’t about to get out anyways. You raise an eyebrow at him.

  
  


He leans over and faux-whispers, “So I’mm’a need your help with this next part. Can you pretty please shave off some of my arm hair so that I can glue it onto my legs strand by strand? Thanks bro.”

  
  


You breathe out your hilarity and are ready to completely ignore whatever he’s on about in favor of making sure you have everything when you see him unveil your tube of super glue from his bag and start to open it, acting like he’s gonna apply it to his leg.

  
  


You snatch it away from him with a frantic, hissed, _“Where’d you even get this.”_ Karkat and Terezi both laugh like it’s the funniest shit they’ve seen all day. Dave’s got a not-smile on his face as he pretends to cry crocodile tears before he shoves the door open and hits the ground with a sharp _slap_ of his purple flip flops.

  
  


As Dave gets older, you realize that he likes to clown around. Likes to make his friends laugh, even if it sometimes means he’s making fun of himself. It’s cute, and it _is_ funny, especially because you can tell he’s a real smart kid who can whip out some hilarious improv at the drop of a hat, but it’s also kind of worrying. How he brings himself down so that others feel better.

  
  


You selfishly wonder if it’s something you taught him.

  
  


Sollux is the one who opens the door. He’s grown a lot taller since you last saw him. One stripe of hair on each side of his head is dyed a bright red and blue, respectively. He’s still got those awfully bi-color glasses on. This time, he’s not wearing a Middle School polo shirt, likely because by the end of summer, he’ll be a Freshman in High School.

  
  


Before anybody can say anything, much less do the usual greetings, Sollux leans forward and gives an anticipatory Terezi a complicated-looking secret handshake.

  
  


“Th’up TZ,” he says, fist bumping each of the other kids once, all while texting. He holds one out for you, and you return the _bunp_ automatically. You feel gently bamboozled. “We gotta be quiet ‘cuz my brother’th th’leeping, but once we’re in my room, a’th long a’th we don’t, like, th’scream or anything, we’re good.”

  
  


The kids all filter inside, but you hang behind. When Sollux looks at you as if to say ‘what’s the hold up?’, you thumb back at your truck. “Unless there’s a parent or somebody I should be making nice to, I’m good to leave and come back later.”

  
  


Sollux surprises you by reaching out and trying to physically drag you inside by the wrist. “No way, you’re not e’th’caping me thi’th time. Get in here.”

  
  


You get in there. Once the door is shut behind you, the house goes near dark. There are blackout curtains on seemingly every window, the only lights coming from faint ones built into ceiling that don’t seem to shine down on anywhere in particular. It’s both startling, considering it’s the middle of the day, yet also comforting. You vaguely recall that Sollux said he gets migraines.

  
  


Belatedly, you realize that there’s a man sitting at the island counter in the kitchen. He’s on the phone and also in front of a propped up tablet screen. He’s typing rapidly, and not speaking. He doesn’t acknowledge the random man stepping into his house, dragged in by what you assume is his son.

  
  


“Don’t mind him.” Sollux comes around your side and nabs you again. His hand is very teenagery – all clammy sweat and unrestrained, growing strength. You are mildly uncomfortable. “Come on, my room’th up the th’tair'th.”

  
  


He awkwardly keeps a hold of you even as he goes up the stairs first, like he’s expecting you to bolt. You don’t know what you did to give this kid the impression that you’ve been avoiding him, or that you’re hard to catch.

  
  


When he breaches the threshold of what must be his room, he holds your arm up triumphantly. The kids all cheer, albeit a little quieter than they are capable of cheering.

  
  


You seriously don’t know what’s going on.

  
  


Sollux has a huge flatscreen TV. Connected to it are several computer monitors, consoles, and at least two desktop towers as far as you can see. With all of this technology breathing, the room is barely toeing the line of pleasantly warm.

  
  


The kids are sitting in front of the TV, controllers already in hand. Karkat and Terezi had mentioned coming over here before – they must know the ropes.

  
  


Sollux finally lets go of you to walk over to a large aquarium that is nearly overshadowed by the several other bright, artificial lights in the otherwise dark room. He bends over to stare into the glass, where a one-eye’d, dual-colored fish swims.

  
  


You think you may be sensing a pattern here.

  
  


“TZ, did you feed my -”

  
  


“Yes!” Terezi inelegantly shoves a disc into one of the consoles.

  
  


Sollux shakes his head, but says, “Thank’th,” like he really means it. He looks at you, how you stand uneasily against the closed door, and spreads his arms as if to show you his room in its entirety. “Well my dude’th, thi’th i’th it. Th’it wherever you want, a’th long a’th you don’t like, knock down the wall’th or whatever.”

  
  


Right, the sleeping brother. You take off your flip flops and nudge them into the corner. For a lack of better options, bar cramming yourself onto the floor like a kid who still has great knees, you perch on his bed. He sits in the only actual chair in here, a wheeled desk chair with bright yellow designs on it. A ‘Gamer Chair’, as Hal would identify it. You’ve never seen one in real life.

  
  


Dave’s over there trying to play whatever it is with his feet, Terezi cackling and egging him on. Karkat seems to be really into the game, and also really into yelling at Dave to “STOP IT! YOU’RE NOT EVEN TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY!” All in all, a perfectly normal circle of interaction for them.

  
  


Sollux sits by his desk and only occasionally interjects with a comment or two. He must be playing a game on his phone, because it’s sideways in his hands, which rapidly tap at the screen.

  
  


At this point, you’re beginning to wonder if this is hell. You really didn’t expect nor plan to spend the day at some fourteen-year-old’s house, in his bedroom no less. You’ve only spoken to Sollux once, and back then he was too little of a kid for you to consider putting him anywhere near Caliborn, ghost girlfriend that can make people go ‘Ribbit’ aside.

  
  


Even now, though, with a good foot of height added to him and a bit of that boniness everyone gets once puberty hits, he’s still just a kid.

  
  


A kid who is apparently flexing on you by solving a Rubik’s Cube in only a few seconds while staring at you before he tosses the cube aside and goes back to gaming.

  
  


Well okay then.

  
  


You really don’t know what your purpose is here. If someone’s expecting you to continue the ghost conversation, then they’re out of luck, because you unfortunately have next to nothing to add.

  
  


Just as you begin to wonder if you can get away with straight up leaving, or possibly going face-down on the bed and napping this whole experience away, somebody opens the door.

  
  


Your legs, which dangle off the end of the bed, are in front of the door. Your left knee gets hit, but instead of stopping, the person only shoves harder.

  
  


Confused and a li’l bruised, you yank your legs up onto the bed.

  
  


A man comes falling in. At first, you’re like, ‘oh shit it’s his dad’, even though nobody’s doing anything wrong in here. You’re used to being in trouble without having done anything, you guess. Have to keep reminding yourself that you’re an adult, and other adult’s authority over you is suspect and potentially defunct.

  
  


But then you realize that the man only looks vaguely like the clean-cut one you saw downstairs. His dark hair is absolutely everywhere, for one thing, and for another, he’s got no shirt on. A worrying amount of large scars litter his body, like he’s been in an accident or something.

  
  


“Sol,” he pronounces slowly, “have you seen my -”

  
  


“No.” Sollux puts down his phone. “Dad th’aid you aren’t allowed in my room when my door i’th clo’th’ed, ‘tuna.”

  
  


‘Tuna’ - his name seriously cannot be Tuna. Is it? - makes a noise not unlike a whine. “Sorrryyy.”

  
  


He looks over at you.

  
  


You like to think that you’re not a socially anxious person. However, at the same time, you’d like nothing more than to grab Dave and leap out the second-story window.

  
  


Tuna smiles at you. It fully reaches his eyes. “Hi.”

  
  


As if you can’t help it, you smile back.

  
  


“Okay!” Announces Sollux, standing up and physically guiding Tuna out of the room, “Go a’th’k Dad, not me. And th’tay out of my room!”

  
  


Sollux shuts the door before Tuna can answer. “Th’orry,” he says to the room at large with a put-upon sigh, “that wa’th my brother, Mituna. He probably lo’th’t hi’th headphone’th. Again.”

  
  


When you imagined Sollux’s older brother, you thought of someone perhaps a year or two older than him. But that man – Mituna – was as old as or even older than you. You guess it’s hypocritical of you – after all, you’re fifteen years older than Dave.

  
  


As if he can hear your thoughts, Dave turns around and gives you a wink and a pair of peace signs. “I lost all four rounds,” he proclaims with something like pride.

  
  


You give him a thumbs up.

  
  


Karkat huffily puts down his controller. “Yea, only because you HARDLY TRIED!”

  
  


Dave pops his mouth. “Yes.”

  
  


Terezi cackles. She’s been holding her controller upside down this entire time. She’s somehow gotten almost as many points as Karkat did. “He was being but only a gentleman, dear Karkat! Letting the lady win instead of trying to show her up.” She elbows Karkat in the side.

  
  


He wheezes out a breath of rage-fueled air. “You’re both terrible. I love you, you’re my friends, but you’re terrible.”

  
  


Terezi hooks Dave around the neck and slopes both herself and him forward so that they fall all over Karkat. “Awww, how sweet! Don’t you think that’s sweet, Dave?”

  
  


Dave makes some kind of choking noise. Terezi’s still got him by the neck, and he’s somehow ended up trapped under Karkat’s flailing armpit.

  
  


“Wow,” drawls Sollux in the best ‘unaffected teenager voice’ you’ve heard since Hal learned how to talk. “You’d think they’d act a little more like they th’ee each other almo’th’t every day or th’omething.”

  
  


Karkat extracts himself with a mighty roar where his voice cracks at least three times, standing above Terezi and Dave, who both roll on the floor like encumbered cucumbers with an ailment of uncontrollable giggles.

  
  


“You could join us more often if you tried!” Karkat tries to walk over to Sollux, but Terezi grabs one of his ankles and makes it very hard, so he sighs and gives up. “Like you could come over for my birthday once. How come you’re never at my birthday parties?”

  
  


Terezi is calmly smothering Dave with a floor pillow and yet still has the focus to say, “He thinks he’s better than birthdays.”

  
  


“That’th becau’th’e I am,” says Sollux. He locks his phone and puts it on his desk. It vibrates constantly, but he ignores it. “Aradia th’ay'th not to kill Dave in here becau’th’e blood th’tain’th are hard to get out of carpet.”

  
  


Terezi stops trying to smother Dave with a pillow. “My bad, Arads.”

  
  


There’s a moment of almost-tense silence, like nobody knows how to comment on the fact that there’s an unseen ghost hanging around that only one of them can hear, but it’s broken up consistently by Sollux’s phone going off the hook.

  
  


He groans. “Th’eriou’th’ly, Eridan. What doe’th he think ‘no th’ut up’ mean’th except for _no_ and _th’ut up.”_

  
  


Karkat makes a face and Terezi, you guessed it, laughs. Dave sits up onto his knees. “Who’s Eridan?” He asks.

  
  


“He’th thi’th guy at th’chool who keep’th trying to get me to come over to hi’th hou’th’e becau’th’e he think’th hi’th dad having a gun collection i’th, like, cool or th’omething? Like, he’th mega, unrea’th’onably rich, and all he want’th to do i’th act like we’re friend’th ju’th’t becau’th’e we both knew Aradia.”

  
  


Karkat shrugs with a complicated expression on his face, too complicated for someone so young, and sits down next to you on the bed. “He’s supposedly friends with what’s left of the Northwests. Not that that means anything anymore.”

  
  


Sollux waves the information off with a, “Whatever. I th’till hate him.”

  
  


Terezi joins the standing crew. Her grin is shark-like. “Says the guy who spent all his time at the eighth grade graduation lock-in with the boy he supposedly hates.”

  
  


“Yea, well…” Sollux’s face scrunches up. “Who told you that? You know that AT only ever talk’th th’it.”

  
  


“Nope! I heard it straight from the spider’s mouth.” Terezi digs into one of Sollux’s bedside table drawers and unearths a honey golden candy, which she then pops into her mouth._ “Buuut _if you agree to come over to my birthday sleepover, perhaps I’ll conveniently forget to tell everybody.”

  
  


Dave goes, “Ooooo snap.” You sit there and say nothing, like you have been, because you’re not a teenager and all of this means less than nothing to you.

  
  


Thankfully, after a few more hours of this boring nonsense wherein you feel more like a glorified wall painting than you do a person, Sollux’s dad must text him, because he stands up and basically tells everybody to get out.

  
  


You trail the kids downstairs. You feel drained and emotionally prickly. At the front door, where all of the kids simply must spend several long moments forcing Sollux to bend down and hug them, Sollux’s dad looks at you like he has no idea when you got into his house or why.

  
  


_The feeling is mutual, buddy,_ is what you don’t say. You don’t actually want to hurt Sollux’s feelings. You give him an inadequate head nod instead.

  
  


Both of his eyebrows raise delicately. “Do you go to the High School?”

  
  


You feel your soul leave your body. “No. I’m Dirk, Dave’s older brother.” You limply wave at Dave, who is currently getting his drawn-out hug from Sollux. It is belatedly embarrassing that his shorts are bright pink. Sometimes, social shame makes you forget why you let him wear whatever he wants.

  
  


God you hope Sollux doesn’t turn around and try to hug you. He wouldn’t have to bend down for it, sure, but you’d have to look his father in the eyes, and then you think you might be pushed to do something totally off the wall bonkers at that point, like drive home and ask Caliborn to roast you alive like a spring chicken.

  
  


You hear a strange, uneven shuffling noise coming from behind you. In the darkness of this house, a thousand horror-esque scenarios pop into your mind.

  
  


When you turn around, however, all you see is Mituna slowly walking down the hallway into the living room. His fluffy black hair has been smushed down by what you guess are his previously lost headphones.

  
  


He looks up. He’s wearing a shirt, now, from some anime you don’t know. You see his sweatpants, and you feel an unwanted sense of kinship.

  
  


He shuffles a little faster, a beaming smile on his face. He’s coming straight towards you, like a Dirk-seeking missile. He’s actually way taller than you first assumed, and his guileless expectations bear down upon you.

  
  


You’re not wearing your sunglasses because it’s way too dark in here, so you’re sure that anybody who’s looking can see every inch of panic on your face. The Dad is exuding an unreadable air that you do not appreciate.

  
  


In the end, you don’t move as Mituna throws his arms around you like you’re long-lost friends and not two veritable strangers. One of the kids snorts a laugh behind you.

  
  


The dad is still fucking looking at you. You wish you were a bigger asshole and had the chops to flip him off.

  
  


“Come back soooon!” Mituna says right into your ear. His headphone is shoved up against your temple. It’s a little painful.

  
  


You uncomfortably raise your hands and pat him on the back. “Okay. Goodbye, Mituna.” He seems to be surprised that you know his name. You try not to feel guilty and fail instantaneously.

  
  


When you’re finally let go, you stiffly turn around. For some reason, Sollux has your phone in his hands. He’s in it, despite not knowing your password.

  
  


You think your face must scream ‘meltdown imminent’, because Dave taps Sollux on the shoulder and says, “Bro hates it when people touch his phone, man.”

  
  


“Ju’th’t putting my number in.” He hands you your phone back. You slip it into your pocket on auto-pilot.

  
  


Outside, it’s sunset. The light is nearly blinding, despite being in a relatively bright room all day. As you turn on the truck and back it out of the driveway, the whole damn Captor household seems to be standing on the porch to witness it. Sollux is waving, yet also texting at the same time. Mituna is smiling for seemingly no reason at all. Their dad’s eyes are pinpoint and watchful.

  
  


It’s unnerving as fuck.

  
  


You drop the two excess kids off, hardly aware of what’s being said to you or around you. When the truck is empty, Dave crawls up front like he always does, and remembers to buckle up.

  
  


The rest of the trip home is in blessed silence.

  
  


But it does not cure you. When you get in the door, you wordlessly look at Dave until he looks back at you. You make a few movements, such as pointing at Dave, then the fridge, and then his electronics strewn about the living room.

  
  


He understands. “Don’t worry dude, I’ll keep myself occupied. I’ll eat some of that leftover mac ‘n cheese or somethin’. You want any?”

  
  


You shake your head. You point up towards your own room.

  
  


Dave gives you an OK handsign. “Feel better, Bro.”

  
  


With shame, you steal a pillow and a blanket from the couch, and then escape upstairs. You shut yourself in your room. The space underneath your desk is perfect for you when you remove the chair.

  
  


It’s not the most comfortable nook you’ve ever crawled into to hide yourself with, but once you open the window to let the fresh air and the sounds of the calm forest in, it’s as close to safety as you think you can possibly achieve.

  
  


You feel Caliborn there. You have no words left today. You like to think that, after all this time, the two of you have enough established, mutual respect that he won’t bother you when you get like this. Not if he wants his house to remain standing and his tenants full of energy to still be his.

  
  


The crows caw. You drift away somewhere nice.

* * *

In October, you take Dave, Karkat, and a somewhat grumpy Sollux to Terezi’s house for her tenth birthday sleepover.

  
  


Under the quiet threat of Sollux’s dad’s steely gaze, you suffer another overenthusiastic hug from Mituna. This time, however, it doesn’t break you down into pieces not fit to be piloted by a human, because you dodge the several hours’ worth of buildup that you sat through last time.

  
  


Seriously, though – just because Captor Papa mistook you for a particularly imposing High Schooler the first time he met you doesn’t mean you’re going to drop everything and be best friends with his adult, mentally disabled son.

  
  


You have one friend in this town named Kankri Vantas. You’d like to keep it that simple.

  
  


Dave comes back from that sleepover with temporary pink dye in his hair that doesn’t fully wash out for several weeks. It clings to his practically colorless hair like dye would on anything white. For a while there, you’re genuinely worried that his hair will always be pink until it grows out and you cut it. It’s apparently practically unnoticeable under the school’s fluorescent lighting, though, so that’s one less thing you have to worry about.

  
  


Once again, over Fall Break, you and Dave are invited by Kankri to spend Thanksgiving at his church with him and Karkat. Once again, you both decline. You are not about that religious life.

  
  


You stay home and make fish – because when don’t you make fish – and a bunch of other Thanksgiving-adjacent food. You let Dave make a rainbow out of his mashed potatoes using food coloring.

  
  


He gets it all over his damn face, likely on purpose. A pink, blue, and green beard with yellow and purple eyebrows. He ate all of the red parts first. The orange, he slaps onto your forehead.

  
  


You make him pose for a picture, and you both look like idiots. You send it to Hal.

* * *

Dave wants to go on a hike for his tenth birthday this year.

  
  


You previously assumed that he’d want to spend it with his friends, but you don’t tell him no. You do wonder, however, what about those hikes you took him on stuck out in his mind and made him want to make it some kind of birthday tradition.

  
  


“You’re getting a little big for that thing,” you reluctantly tell him as he tries to ride in the red wagon you made back on his sixth birthday.

  
  


“So are you sayin’ you can’t lift?” He goads you, playing with the red glow-in-the-dark fidget spinner that Sollux apparently gifted him.

  
  


“I’m not fallin’ for that,” you claim, even though you do, actually, fall for that, and end up hauling Dave’s ass and the picnic food through the deer trails in the woods. The trails you and Dave have smoothed out and packed down into more recognizable paths throughout the years.

  
  


You make Dave get out and help you unpack the food. He complains, but does it. It’s pretty cute behavior – his sense of personality is developing in a way that tickles you pink more often than not. You’re proud of him.

  
  


He’s wearing the red hoodie you got him. He asked for one, and so that’s what he got. It’s not your fault that there’s fifty dollars hidden in the front pocket. No, you have no idea who could’ve possibly put it there. Not a single clue.

  
  


When he absentmindedly puts his hands into the kangaroo pocket in order to get warm, his face shows confusion. He pulls out the folded twenties and ten. His mouth falls open and he looks at you in awe.

  
  


...Okay so maybe you know how it got in there.

  
  


He practically falls all over himself trying to get to you, to give you a grateful if spitty smooch on the cheek. Before he does, though, he looks around like somebody’s gonna be out here, witnessing him giving some love to his older brother for a birthday present.

  
  


You wish you knew what that felt like. Being embarrassed by how affectionate your guardian is. You’ve shot that chance in the foot, though, and buried it six feet deep.

  
  


Dave chews on the beef from the stew you cooked. You knew he’d like it. “How old are you?”

  
  


“Twenty-five.” You drink what’s left of your broth, and re-cap your metal traveling mug.

  
  


“When’s your birthday?”

  
  


You freeze. You intend to say something witty, or derailing, but instead all you do is go, “Um,” like this is amateur hour.

  
  


Dave looks at you suspiciously. “Bro. Dude. When’s your birthday?”

  
  


Oh fuck. Why’d you back yourself into this corner. You should’ve just told him when he first got here that you have the same birthday as him, could’ve even used it as a way to make him feel more at home.

  
  


His face slowly breaks down into something sorrowful. “Do you… not have one?”

  
  


Unexpectedly, you bark a self-deprecating laugh. “Oh, Dave, no, it’s not like that. It’s...” You rub under your nose, as if you have snot hanging there. You don’t. “We have the same birthday.”

  
  


Dave stares at you, uncomprehending.

  
  


“It’s today,” you try again. “I turn twenty-five today.”

  
  


He looks... you don’t know. It’s something. You wonder when you’ll stop being surprised at what complicated emotions these kids show, because sooner or later it’ll stop being understandable and start being short-sighted. Start being like you’re underestimating them.

  
  


“Am I allowed to be mad?” He asks you, continuing before you have the chance to answer, “Like, did you do this on purpose? Why didn’t you tell me? Was there somethin’ wrong with- with celebrating both at once?”

  
  


“No.” You backtrack, “I mean, _yes._ Yes, you’re allowed to be mad. No, I didn’t mean to. No, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating both at once. I’ll admit to it not quite crossing my mind.”

  
  


“What does that mean?”

  
  


“It means I’ve never found my birthday to be all that important.” You set your soup canister aside. “Hal and I share one, and now you just so happen to, too. It’s a coincidence for you, but for us it was never a big deal.” You look at him in a way that you hope imparts the importance of this. “I wanted yours to be a big deal. I want your birthday to be fun, and all about you. I’m an adult, kid. I don’t need cake or presents or whatever. That’s already passed me by.”

  
  


Dave scoots closer to you. You can tell that he’s upset. You sigh and fold him under your arms. “I didn’t mean to make it more complicated than it needed to be. I just didn’t think beyond what made you happy at that moment. I’m sorry.”

  
  


Dave sniffles once. “If you think I’m gonna be making up for five years’ worth of missed presents, you’re out of your mind.”

  
  


You snort and rub his head until it gets obnoxious, and he’s yelling for you to _“quiiiiit!”_

  
  


“Yea, no, I don’t expect it,” you clarify after he’s done squirming around, acting like you’ve ruined his hair for the entire month or something. “And Hal doesn’t either. He can get his own damn presents.”

  
  


You both sit together for a quiet while before Dave gets the zoomies and starts poking around the woods. You haphazardly clean stuff up and then leave it with the wagon, trailing after Dave as he goes around taking pictures of stuff with his phone.

  
  


He finds a dead bird. It’s almost entirely decomposed, now only bones. You’re surprised by how he goes, “oh that is so fucking cool,” and takes at least ten pictures of it. You’d’ve thought he’d shy away from the morbid, but you guess maybe that’s your fault. You did plop him down with a ghost in residence at only four years old.

  
  


You don’t know if the potential trauma he might have endured under Dad is better when it’s overshadowed by the stress he has encountered and will continue to experience here, or if they’re both equally damaging. You don’t think you enjoy considering it too deeply or too often.

  
  


It pricks something in the back of your mind. Something unpleasant, worrying. A thing you tend to shy away from, but looking at the way Dave hardly glances back to make sure you’re still there, entirely in his own bug-and-bones world, you think it might be time to broach the subject.

  
  


“Hey Dave.” Dave stands up and goes _“yuh?”_ because sometimes he just don’t act right. “How do you feel… about Caliborn.”

  
  


Dave shifts on his feet. His shoes are a bit scuffed. You think he’ll outgrow them before summer.

  
  


“Cal is the shit,” he tells you with blank confidence that you don’t entirely trust. He fingers his phone, thumbnail playing with the side of his phone case. Its color is worn thin there, like he does that a lot.

  
  


“It would be okay if you thought Cal wasn’t the shit.” Your breath fogs out of your body, obscuring your vision of the way Dave stands uncomfortably, apart from you by several feet. “Just so you know.”

  
  


His expression becomes inscrutable. “Did y’all have a fight or smth’?”

  
  


You say, “What,” on reflex, because your only other option would have been to say something horrible like, ‘When _don’t_ we have a fight.’

  
  


Dave opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but then closes it. He shrugs shoulders that surely must carry more weight than your eyes can perceive.

  
  


You say, “Don’t worry about it. Was just checking in on you.”

  
  


He seems to accept this. He only takes a few more pictures before he walks the wagon home with you.

  
  


Inside, while you’re busy unpacking the dirty dishes, Dave goes upstairs and shuts his bedroom door.

* * *

Sometime in the late winter, right before it really gets warm but after the truly freezing weather has moved on, Kankri gets you into going to the Farmer’s Market. Not because _you_ want to go, but because he wants you to go _for_ him. He hands you a list, some money, and directions because that shit always seems to move.

  
  


Something something, support local businesses, something something, enriching Karkat’s palate, something something, less packaging waste. You stopped seriously listening after the second mention of kambucha. Once he started in on _freeessshhh_ kale smoothies you think you blacked the fuck out or something, which proved to be a mistake when you woke up with a list of those exact things in your sweaty palm and Kankri’s nimble, fussy hands putting your jacket on for you.

  
  


You didn’t turn around, but you would’ve bet that he had his smug ‘bitch you THOUGHT you were getting out of this, didn’t you?’ expression on as he shut the door.

  
  


On your first (mostly) unwilling trip there, you could hardly stand the crowds. People tried to talk to you because you were looking at their stuff. You didn’t want to be fucking talked to. You very nearly left, resolving to tell Kankri a succinct, ‘no, go fellatio yourself’, but it was a Saturday, and you do enjoy your kid-less Saturdays more than you previously thought you would. You were once again thwarted by how damn convenient Kankri is.

  
  


So you grit your teeth, pulled on your big boy pants, and you got out there and you hustled. You threw elbows. You bargained. You _won._

  
  


...As if.

  
  


You would sheepishly show Kankri’s impeccably written list to various shop owners and pointed at what you wanted, not bothering to speak because everybody and everything was so loud. Oftentimes you feel like people read you however they want and make whatever assumptions they want and there’s nothing you can do about it so you give up.

  
  


Hal would laugh. Hal would laugh so hard.

  
  


Some of them still tried to talk to you. Asked if you were some girl’s boyfriend who got whipped into shopping, and you wouldn’t know what to say that wasn’t some facet of “I have never been, nor shall I ever be, ‘some girl’s boyfriend.” So you just told those who asked that it was for your busy friend. They’d then make frustratingly vague insinuations that they’d refuse to explain.

  
  


Like a lighthouse in the storm, there was this one stall, pretty quiet and with little traffic. It was stacked high with beveled glass jars, not too big but not too small either. On the top of each jar’s metal lid was a cut circle of thick artist’s paper and one unique handpainted picture.

  
  


They were gorgeous. The Market is always a cornucopia of colors and smells and attractions but the sun must’ve shone just right that day, because all that truly caught your eye was a minuscule painting of a rudimentary white horse figure standing by the sea at night.

  
  


The person manning it was a middle-aged man with only one eye and a pleasant accent. Said that his daughter paints one for every jar. Said that she dropped out of college, and has tried a lot of medications for her depression. Said that it’s his way of trying to help her understand that life isn’t about money, or college, or success, but happiness. Contentedness. Relationships. Passion.

  
  


You bought one jar of strawberry jam, which was coincidentally the jar with the painting that first lured you in, even though it wasn’t on Kankri’s list. You used your own money.

  
  


Perhaps once or twice a month does Kankri ask you to go to the Farmer’s Market, only ever on Saturdays when he’s babysitting and doing his classes online, always steadily working towards that Master’s.

  
  


You don’t mention the man and his daughter because it feels almost like a secret – nobody else approaches the stall when you’re there. You’re free to peruse the delights of this daughter’s creations, observed silently and judgelessly by an unnamed man. The only one who tangentially knows is Dave, and that’s because he calls the otherwise label-less jars ‘the good stuff’ whenever you get it. He prefers it over something store bought, and frankly, so do you.

  
  


Today, the man is in motion when you approach. He’s picking up some of the jars, staring at their adorned lids, then gently plucking one out of every ten or so off, placing them delicately inside of a thin plastic folder that lightly shudders in the morning breeze.

  
  


Before you have the chance to say anything, he greets you with, “You’re early today.”

  
  


You nod, because it’s factual.

  
  


The man extracts one more imperfectly circular painting, putting the now completely barren jar behind him, out of sight. You quietly stand by and watch.

  
  


“Look at this,” he says, holding the one still in his hand up to the sunlight. It’s a pink rose that fades into peach and yellow, surrounded by deeply colored stained glass. “This is beautiful. _Beautiful._ How can I sell these? How can I give these away? My daughter made them.” He slides the painting into his folder, shuts it, and then puts it back down out of sight.

  
  


“Some day, when I’m gone, my daughter will find that,” he tells you, possibly indicating his folder stuffed full of what must be months of small, round works of art, “and she will know that her papa loved her. These days, she doesn’t hear me when I say that I love her. She’s too grown, too cynical, she’s been hurt too much already. And my actions aren’t enough – I’m gone too often. I'm a pharmacist; I have a full-time job. Jamming is only a hobby. But one day, she’ll look back and see me, my efforts, and that’s all that I ask of her.”

  
  


He picks out a jar of strawberry jam just for you, seeming to search for the perfect one going by the picture on top. He appears pleased with himself at his choice – another horse, on another beach. You guess you’re transparent to him.

  
  


“Do you have children?” He asks you before you’ve paid. It’s one of the first times he’s made overtures to know you, instead of offering bits and pieces of himself.

  
  


You don’t know why, but you say, “I have a son,” even though that’s a lie. Something about this man is attractive to you – not in the way his craggy brown face looks, or his body language speaks. It must be in his soul. You want to connect with him, if only as a farce, if only for a moment. Pretend like it really is that simple of a life.

  
  


You confess, “Everything he’s ever drawn is still pinned up on the walls somewhere.” You tell this veritable stranger, “His name is Dave. He’s ten. His favorite colors are pink and red. He really likes apples and crows.”

  
  


He smiles at you. His empty eye socket has the most wrinkles. “Her name is Annabelle. She’s twenty-one. Her favorite color is green, and she loves horror movies.”

  
  


When you walk away with your strawberry jam, you belatedly and softly realize that you never tried to ask for his name, and he never asked for yours. You feel like it’s meant to be that way.

  
  


Kankri must understand at some point that banishing you to the Farmer’s Market isn’t all that nice or convenient on your supposed ‘day off’ meant for working, so he sweetens the deal by saying that he’ll get you whatever you want. You always pick out the same jar of strawberry jam from the same booth whose prices never change.

  
  


When you take Dave home for the day, there isn’t exactly much to unload. You slip the jar out of your pocket – Kankri has reusable bags he gives you, but you aren’t going to steal one for a single jar – and put it into the cabinet where the unopened cans go.

  
  


Later, when Dave comes downstairs, he stops and stares at you where you’re camped out on the couch, repairing a tear in one of his pairs of blue jeans.

  
  


“Did you get the good stuff?”

  
  


You nod. He scampers to the kitchen with a little more enthusiasm than would typically be warranted for an average jar of Smuckers. With or without his express knowledge, you watch him go, pausing in your stitching.

  
  


He forgoes his stool and starts to make a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich. He likes to think he’s taller than he really is; you leave the bread on the counter instead of in its cabinet for this purpose.

  
  


This reminds you of the reoccurring instances when you forget yourself, and the time, and you wake to find Dave trying to feed you something. Candy, one of his school snacks, leftovers. This act of compassion always confuses you somewhere deep, but now you think you are abruptly approaching something like an answer that flits just out of your grasp the longer you see Dave doing something so mundane as make a simple sandwich.

  
  


What is unconditional love? Hal would say that it’s a lie. Once upon a time, you’d’ve agreed with him, or said it before he could.

  
  


Once upon a time, you had a dad who taught you to say and believe such things.

  
  


Once upon a time, you didn’t have Dave.

  
  


You pet your bottom lip with your thumb as you openly gaze at Dave, who seems either entirely unaware or unconcerned that you do so. You think about the father at the market and his daughter, Annabelle. You clumsily connect the two like a filly learning to take its first steps before it begins to run.

  
  


You wonder what of his you will need to give away some day, but will selfishly cling to instead. When he inevitably leaves you, unable to be around you any longer, will you deny him true freedom?

  
  


You think that, instead of searching for a broad term, you should be asking yourself how _you_ define unconditional love. Surely, being who you are, and what you’ve done, you must have a truly twisted understanding of love in general. And what of the ‘unconditional’ modifier?

  
  


You switch tracks. You wonder how Dave defines unconditional love.

  
  


Dave starts to make a second sandwich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwb35JpIe-4)   
[[CLICK HERE for imlovedavepeta's fanart]](https://imlovedavepeta.tumblr.com/post/189462477868/0dsi-the-mm-costumes-were-just-really-cute)   
[[CLICK HERE for revokedrights' fanart part 3]](https://revokedrights.tumblr.com/post/189565222263/yall-please-read-in-loco-phasma-by-0dsi-its)   
[[CLICK HERE for fae's fanart commissioned by Alex Harrier]](https://chaton-katreal.tumblr.com/post/189792342599/flutterfae-art-commission-art-of-hal-and-dave)


	9. Thou Shall Not Fall, Thou Shall Not Die, Thou Shall Not Fear, Thou Shall Not Kill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *HORROR, VIOLENCE, POSSESSION, PAST CHARACTER DEATH, SNAKES, GORE AND BODY HORROR-LIKE IMAGERY, extreme tenderness, child endangerment, injuries, blood, coercive sensual intimacy, children using sexual humor, implied dick pics sent to a minor, mentioned sex work, referenced past child abuse, depressive episode, self-hatred, 'coming of age' shenanigans, kids cussing, implied non-consensual kissing, rejection, injury to a child, intense involuntary fear responses, Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn/Flop mentality, implied/joking sugar daddy-ism (???), awkward flirting, cryptic thoughts dreams and conversations, disordered speech, symptoms of brain trauma, hospitals, accidental gun violence, blindness from traumatic injury, mentions of pain medications, ableism & internalized ableism, semi-nudity, toilet actions (???), crotch response, hallucinations, delusions, out-of-body experiences, manipulation, sexist language (pussy), friends fighting, tweenage romantic drama, implied one-sided Dave/Karkat, implied one-sided Karkat/Terezi, cliffhanger.

Dave gives a cawing cry of triumph over something, his arms in the air, nearly dropping his cordless controllers. He and Karkat are camped out on the couch, playing Super Mario Party on the old Switch that Hal recently ferried over.

  
  


In retaliation, Karkat, with a sour face, reaches over and mercilessly tickles Dave’s exposed tummy. It quickly devolves into a desperate anti-tickle fight, wherein they’re both flailing and screaming. Karkat seems as serious as a soldier about to enter his first battle – Dave is grinning like an idiot, repeatedly unpausing the game to make both of their characters lose rounds until Karkat gets frustrated and shoves all four controllers in between the couch cushions. On screen, Luigi cries out something vaguely Italian.

  
  


Unbeknownst to them, you slink across the living room like something loathsome. You trudge up the stairs with the same detestable countenance.

  
  


Normally, you’d spend your time downstairs, keeping yourself occupied without directly inserting yourself into whatever childish shenanigans are afoot. Or perhaps you’d find a task to do outside, leaving the front door open so as to keep the kids within earshot. You don’t feel comfortable ‘working’ while the kids are here, though, not after you’ve been spoiled with kid-free Saturdays. They like to come into your room unannounced. You’d rather not risk blinding them.

  
  


Thoroughly ruffling Caliborn with your commission art used to be the highlight of your week, but apparently there’s only so many scenes of furry sex that he can berate you for before it becomes mundane even for a repulsed poltergeist who has probably killed people in nasty, gory ways.

  
  


Now, if he bothers you at all while you’re drawing, it’s to criticize you for taking artistic shortcuts. He still seems to be under the impression that seventy-five dollars is a lot of money.

  
  


Your room is fairly dark by this time in the late afternoon. You shut the door, and it’s as if all the light and joy from downstairs gets snuffed out. You can barely hear strings of giggles and tinny copyrighted music floating up.

  
  


In the stifling quiet, you gingerly pad over to the blanket pile you’d discarded into the corner of the room. It was in the way of your desk chair, and you forgot to take it all back downstairs. Like a ferret, you collect used, soft things and sequester them, conveniently never replacing them.

  
  


In the center of the pile is your phone. You gracelessly plop down, ignoring how a few blankets are nothing like a mattress and so the bones of your knees knock into the wood floor beneath it. You pick up your phone and unlock it robotically.

  
  


Your lockscreen is a blurry shot of Kankri and Karkat, covered in some kind of splattered paint. You think Kankri tried to use your phone to take a selfie, but the then seven year old Karkat wasn’t having it, his face a fuzzy outline of sheer outrage. Kankri’s expression is enthusiastically surprised. Your homescreen is a simple picture of Dave – whatever you had on hand at the time. You change it often to the newest picture you’ve taken of him.

  
  


You open up your vanilla inbox. It’s empty.

  
  


Your phone got a new OS update. Stupidly, trustingly, _idiotically,_ you let it install and shut off. When you next turned it on, all of your saved messages had been deleted.

  
  


In a panic, you’d looked to the public forums for help. Other people had also swarmed there, claiming that important messages they’d been keeping from clients, deceased relatives, and people they intended to need evidence against in court, had vanished. The mods were apologetic, but had no solutions.

  
  


No patch has been released.

  
  


Gone are the old texts from friends, logs backdated to when they were still making an effort to wonder where you’d gone. Wonder what you’d done. Back when you were still on your mighty high horse, forgetting or even refusing to answer, making them wait. Until they stopped waiting for you at all.

  
  


Gone are the very last messages Dad ever sent you, vaguely threatening ones that told you to get your ass home before he came out and found you himself. You’d never replied. You’d been seventeen. You were sneaking around with Jake with what little time he spent in Texas. It was the night you’d broken up with him. You remember going home after that – Dad was mad, but there must’ve been something about you, because he didn’t smack you ‘round the head or anything. How fucking generous.

  
  


Gone are the string of cryptic messages from Hal over the years that you saved due to how they tickled your hind brain, made you feverishly itchy and think neurotically of that first letter he sent, the one you couldn’t decode. You can’t recall where you put it. It didn’t seem to important at the time. Now it’s a rash. Now it’s an unconnected series of crime scenes.

  
  


You don’t think yourself capable of truly remembering what Rox’s voice sounded like the last time you’d called them. You fully remember the stinging bite of shame that last time you’d called Jake, only to have Jane pick up and tell you, quite gently, that Jake “wasn’t up to speaking with you right now.” But you don’t hear Jane’s voice anymore. Her laugh, maybe, but not how she sounded when she was talking about the rain or her dad or her devil of a cat.

  
  


Selfishly, you can hear Jake’s voice, though. Or maybe it’s just his transatlantic accent you’re realizing in your mind. Maybe you’ll never know.

  
  


You stopped sending letters to them years ago.

  
  


Aimlessly, like some besotted filly in the 2010s waiting for his beau to text first, you hunker down into your musty blanket haven and stare at your inbox from in between the folds.

  
  


You don’t allow dozing, fully expecting yourself to willingly remain seated in the bowels of this cantankerous mood, of which is entirely your fault. Your fault that your friends didn’t want to keep in contact anymore. Your fault for expecting something impossible to happen.

  
  


The screen, even with red light activated, begins to burn at your retinas.

  
  


When Caliborn fades into your room some incalculable amount of time later, you intend to ignore him. Sometimes, he even lets you. Dig your grave, that is.

  
  


“SO DESPONDENT.” It seems as if he isn’t letting you do anything except pay attention to him. Pity. “WHY ARE YOU NOT. DOWNSTAIRS. NEEDLESSLY NANNYING TWO GROWING BOYS?”

  
  


You have nothing to say to him. Your screen’s light fades, so you jostle it lightly to make it wake up again. The empty inbox stares back at you.

  
  


“WHY HIDE IN YOUR FILTH PILE?” Caliborn’s voice circles your head as he is wont to do, seemingly unable to stay in one spot when speaking his riddles. “CRYING OVER YOUR TINY BRAINDEATH MACHINE.”

  
  


Your tiny braindeath machine is snatched from your hand. It floats around the room, directionless, but unlike other times Caliborn has laid invisible hands on your electronics, you don’t go scrambling after it. Somewhere around the window, it’s finally allowed to go to sleep without your needy fingers smudging up its screen.

  
  


The only reason you say anything at all is because of the way his command sounds. “TELL ME.” On that night when Dave first got badly sick, he said the same thing. He said that he’d listen. You’d believed him.

  
  


“Mmm...” You hum, getting used to the feeling of having sound pass through your throat and mouth. “I miss my friends. I shouldn’t. But I do.”

  
  


You think you hear your phone land somewhere on your desk, a concerning clatter. It’s survived worse.

  
  


“THEN YOUR SOLUTION. IS SIMPLE.” You spy the edge of him, a smoggy latticework that could possibly be interpreted as the side of someone’s hip, if you’re to get artistic about it. Soon, however, he’s nothing but a roving green light, a hovering pair of red eyes that you can’t see from your huddled position. “SEND THEM LETTERS. ASK AFTER THEIR HEALTH. CHAT ABOUT THEIR. FRIVOLITIES. THEN THEIR GOOD GRACES. SHALL BE YOURS ONCE MORE.”

  
  


“They don’t wanna hear from me,” you say, pretending like you can’t hear Caliborn messing with something else in the room like a fidgeting, destructive child in a doctor’s office.

  
  


“YOU ARE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH.” The window pops open. Fresh air mingles with the stale. You don’t understand why he did that.

  
  


“I know.” You roll over onto your back, your joints popping as you unfold from your strange position of lying on bent legs. The chilled air tickles your collarbone. You place your hand onto your forehead and shut your eyes. “Man, I fuckin’ know.”

  
  


Cal huffs, the sound of a car exhaust blowing out on the highway. His ambient heat clashes with the shadowed breeze. You shiver and sigh, ‘despondent’ as he accused you of being.

  
  


For a moment, it’s all anticipation. You don’t know what he’ll do next, if he’ll do anything at all. Maybe he’ll leave your ass on the floor, and you’ll have to tell yourself to be grateful he didn’t decide to set you on fire or something. Maybe he’ll throw your phone out the window. Maybe Dave will knock on the door and interrupt –

  
  


A heat blooms high on your abdomen. You don’t startle. If anything, the anticipation only winds tighter, higher, as you conclude that he intends to burn you. Though, you reason, the heat doesn’t normally start at your ribs.

  
  


Hysterically, you wonder if he’s somehow missed your hip underneath all these blankets.

  
  


But the heat doesn’t catch alight, doesn’t burn you within an inch of sanity. It simply roves. You peek open your eyes, and see nothing but the shield of your fingers and the general light of him taking up every corner of your room.

  
  


It’s. It’s something. The anxiety churns low in your stomach and turns the warmth sour, like having a fever in the summer with no air-con or water to drink.

  
  


It’s pleasant. Not good, but not horrible. It middles. You are confused. You liken it to sensations you have rarely experienced or may never – the tranquility of a hot bath when you first step in and sink down, right before the body adjusts to the new temperature.

  
  


You liken it to something you’d rather not imagine – someone who loves you rubbing their hand on your upset stomach. If only the reality didn’t include the feeling of being held down, unable to stop it or leave.

  
  


He circles the warmth around the area of your chest, then goes lower, as if he’s read your mind. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  
  


You swallow down some emotion you refuse to place.

  
  


You don’t think you’ve ever had somebody like that – not with you, anyways. Not anybody you’d allow to do something like that in the first place. You’ve always found yourself too far to the side of unlovable. You feel like it’s too late, too selfish for you to try and find someone like that, family or otherwise. You should be that for Dave, and then… Nobody else, you guess. You don’t know.

  
  


Speaking of… “You had better not ever do any of this to Dave,” you warn the house spook as he traces underneath a rib you once broke. It no longer aches, but you can imagine the pain being leeched away with startling accuracy.

  
  


He doesn’t flip the switch and burn you, for all he is mighty close to several very flammable parts, but his snort is pure derision. “YOU ARE STUPID. OF COURSE I WOULDN’T.”

  
  


You remove the palm from your forehead and are met, unexpectedly, with pinpointed red.

  
  


You look into those hateful eyes. You used to see nightmares in them, and you still do. But it’s different when you’re alone with him – it’s just _different._ You cannot extrapolate.

  
  


The context of his oath is never solidified, as within the next moment, Caliborn’s light and heat is whisked away with a sudden, cold wind from the open window. It’s evening, now, all dusky blue and chirping night life.

  
  


It’s so out of left field, the bereftness, that you call out for him once on instinct before you get a hold of yourself.

  
  


You lay back down, only now made aware of how tensely you held yourself throughout his bizarre actions. You timidly pat at your stomach, lifting up your shirt. Your skin is hot to the touch, but unblemished. A confusing step to the left of ashamed, you pull your shirt back down.

  
  


It’s stupid. It’s so stupid, but you remember that time he possibly insinuated that you are capable of being delicate and soft, and you feel something in your chest quiver before you harshly silence it.

  
  


Feeling inordinately sleepy, you force yourself to get up. Your back and several other parts of you pop as you stretch. You kick around at your sad blanket pile like a total loser before you pick it all up and hip-check your door open. It always acts funny when the weather changes, never quite latching correctly, so you don’t need to turn the handle.

  
  


When you peer over the landing and spy your kid(s?) asleep on the couch, you consider that maybe you should get some kind of bed in your room after all.

  
  


Or, you think malignantly as you carry a half-asleep Karkat up to Dave’s room and then an awake and utterly spoiled Dave up as well, you can just make Hal get you a bed, since he’s so fond of buying affection these days.

* * *

“I dunno,” says Dave, speakerphone on as he talks to Hal while also painting something nonsensical and beautiful on another one of his tiny canvases, “Like, there’s only one Middle School here, so we’ll all end up in the same one. I’m just like, scared that we’ll get different classes and won’t ever see each other except during the thirty second classroom swaps. That’s how it works, right?”

  
  


You, a respectable distance away of a mythical unit called ‘one couch cushion’, are silently scrubbing stain remover on one of your well-loved tank tops. It’s the white one that Jane got you all those years ago. You’re sucking on a piece of hard candy that mistakenly calls itself a mint, yet it’s cherry flavored; Cal threw it at you earlier, and you couldn’t resist shoving it in your mouth as a power move.

  
  


“That’s how it works, although I believe that class swaps get at least two minutes, if not upwards of five,” Hal confirms, voice slightly fuzzy in a way even the most modern of phones cannot banish. “In my limited experience, there’s no way to truly co-ordinate what classes you’ll be given, beyond the final tests you’ll take before graduating Elementary School.”

  
  


Dave mumbles something like, “FUCK the tests,” but you know he knows that Karkat, who is very gung-ho about good grades, won’t let him forget the importance of placement tests.

  
  


“Dirk, what do you think about this.”

  
  


You accidentally suck back on your candy too hard and it roundhouse kicks you in the uvula. You lean over and hack it back up into your hand, your breathing a little askew. Dave is patting your shoulder, getting yellow paint all over the both of you, and you can hear Hal vaguely going, “What the hell is he doing.”

  
  


“Dying,” you choke. “Fuck off.”

  
  


“He’s fine tho’,” Dave contradicts you with. He ineffectively tries to wipe off the yellow paint he smeared onto your skin but it just makes it worse. “Well actually he’s got jaundice now. Sorry.”

  
  


Hal says, “Tragic,” with zero inflection. Asshole.

  
  


You promptly excuse yourself to go wash the paint off, because god bless Kankri but he apparently bought Dave a set with paint made from the most permanent dyes ever because you know that once the paint dries, it’s there forever. Be it canvas, clothes, skin or hair.

  
  


In the background of you awkwardly bending over the sink with one sleeve teasingly shoved off of your shoulder like you’re a pin-up about to get murdered, you hear Dave excitedly clamor to put his paints away so that he can set up his Bi-Monthly Minecraft With Hal sesh.

  
  


You think Cal might try to bait you by floating a hand towel over to you – one that was already in reach before he stepped in, of all things – but you don’t take it. He’s held things out to you and you’d guilelessly grab at them only for him to yank them away and snicker at you. You mutely cross your arms and frown at the ugly yellow towel you still plan to shred some day.

  
  


He must realize his gig is up, because the towel drops. You try to grab it before it hits the floor, but it is suddenly floating away. You hear his horrible laugh from above.

  
  


Annoyed at yourself for being such an easy target, you wipe water off your shoulder and fling the droplets in his general direction. He doesn’t even sizzle, because he’s a metaphysical concept only tangentially connected to heat, color of light, and the impossible power of telekinesis.

  
  


You walk back into the living room, intent on hand-washing your tanktop as soon as the bleach juice has sunk in, when Dave comes hopping down the stairs with his laptop already open in his hands. He looks happy.

  
  


He trips on the last step, at the turn of the hand rail, and pile drives himself into the edge of the couch. A horrible cracking noise erupts, and your heart hits your intestines.

  
  


Before you can so much as move around the couch to see if he’s brained or alive or what, Dave pops up. His sunglasses are gone, probably on the floor somewhere if not shattered, and his eyes are wide as anything. He’s scared.

  
  


He turns tail and runs for the front door.

  
  


He’s scared of _you._

  
  


You see a trail of thin blood leaking from his nose, and you intercept him with a few long strides. You grab him ‘round his middle and he lets out a cut-off scream that makes you balk.

  
  


You drop where you stand, curling over him as he makes more noises that you cannot possibly describe, lest the horror of the situation wash you away completely.

  
  


“Dave,” you beg as he squirms and fights to get away from you, “Dave, baby, let me see, let me see where you’re hurt.”

  
  


“But, but I –”

  
  


You turn his head towards you. His nose is red and the bleeding isn’t heavy, but his eyes are flooded with tears and that wild, rolling look about them that makes his perma-popped red vessels of his sclera look almost sickening.

  
  


“Where does it hurt?” You try to ask him, but he only gawks upwards at the ceiling and won’t look at you. “Dave? Did you hit your head? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

  
  


“No!” But he doesn’t elaborate. You lay him down onto the floor, on his back, and his breathing gets a little better but he’s still shaking like he thinks the worst is yet to come.

  
  


You can feel the heat of Caliborn at your back, and you resist the urge to physically swat at him in a bout of self-irritation at your lack of control, of knowledge. You don’t know what to do here. You just want to know if Dave is okay. You don’t want to scare him more, and you’re afraid to let him go, afraid he’ll get up and run away from you like you’re a monster.

  
  


“HE HIT HIS FACE.”

  
  


“Yea, I can see that,” you can’t help but snipe back. You lower your head in between your crunched knees a second later, both hands still reaching forward to be aimlessly placed on Dave’s face and chest.

  
  


“WHAT HAPPENED?”

  
  


You can’t tell if he’s talking to you or Dave, now, but Dave lets out a shuddery breath and squeezes his bloody red eyes shut, a few more tears slipping out to join the thin stream of blood you can’t wipe up yet because you don’t want to leave him like this.

  
  


“I broke it,” he pitifully replies, his voice the epitome of sorrow and guilt. “I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry Bro, I didn’t mean to.”

  
  


Your mind blanks for a moment. You remember that heart-stopping noise you heard, like shattering glass. “The shades?”

  
  


Dave let’s out a little sob and somehow looks even more tortured. “No, those’re fine, but… The… The laptop. It’s broken in two.”

  
  


“Dave, I don’t–“ You blink rapidly a few times, as if you can cast a screensaver-be-gone spell on your own mind. “I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about what you broke unless it’s one of your bones.” You pull him up and crush him to your chest, where he cries a bit louder as if he’d been holding it in. “I’m not gonna hate you because you fell and accidentally broke some object, some _thing__._ I wouldn’t even hate you if you broke it on purpose.”

  
  


Dave croaks something out, but you can’t hear it. His hands are fisted into your shirt, twisting agonizingly as he tries to calm down but can’t.

  
  


“I was so scared when I heard that noise,” you tell him, “I thought that was your damn skull busting open. I honestly forgot what you’d tripped with right after. All I cared about was whether or not you’d gotten hurt. And you _are_ hurt.”

  
  


His messy face peers up at you. He’s gotten a mix of blood, snot, tears, and probably spit all mushed up onto your shirt. Far be it from your earlier mindset of keeping all of your clothes clean and wearable for another year, all you can think about is how much his face must hurt extra with all the crying and hiding he’s doing.

  
  


Dave warbles out another, _“I’m sorry,” _that’s partially interrupted by his phone ringing out a jaunty video game tune. Something from Delta Rune, you don’t know.

  
  


With the way he pales and tries to hide his face back into your chest, you’re betting it’s Hal calling, wondering why Dave never connected to the Minecraft server.

  
  


You reach over to the coffee table, but you’re a bit short. Like it’s been called, the phone leaps off of the table and into your hands before you can consider awkwardly scooting yourself and Dave over. You raise and eyebrow back at your silent, ghostly observer, and answer the phone.

  
  


“Is everything alright, Dave?” His concerned tone is giving you hives, even though you logically know that you are not the intended recipient.

  
  


“Good instincts.” Hal gives you a suspicious hum at the first sign of your voice. “Dave tripped and dropped his laptop. It’s a little unusable. He hit his nose.”

  
  


“Oh no,” says Hal. “That’s awful.” His delivery is performative in nature. Seems like he doesn’t put in nearly as much effort for you as he does for Dave. You’re conflicted about that. “If he’s fine, then am I allowed to speak to him, or are you his stoic gatekeeper?”

  
  


You look down at Dave and silently waggle the phone away from your ear. He rapidly shakes his head back and forth.

  
  


“Nah, don’t think he’s up for talking right now,” you readily report, “though I’m sure he’ll be glad to know that you, under no circumstances, blame him for accidentally breaking the laptop, and that you don’t hate him at all.”

  
  


“Of course. In fact, I’d been planning on replacing that old thing any day now.”

  
  


Fuckin’ score. Sugar Uncle Hal to the rescue. “Schweet, thanks.” You hang up on him.

  
  


Dave continues to cling to your front, an overwhelmed look about him that speaks volumes. He’s no longer panicking, though, so that’s a definite plus.

  
  


“Hey.” He peers up at you reluctantly. “You know I love some cuddles and some lovin’, but this is getting distressing with the way you look. Can we go to the bathroom so that I can confirm that you’re okay? Get some of that blood off your face, some tissues up your nose. Maybe some icecream when it’s all over.”

  
  


After a few more long moments of calming down, Dave makes you carry him up to the bathroom, because of course he does. This kid will never pass up the opportunity to be carted around. You’re pretty sure you’ve even seen Kanaya holding him at least once, and you’re still confused on the context about that.

  
  


After cleaning him up and checking him out, you find that your First Aid kit is all but unnecessary.

  
  


“Well,” you drawl as you lay the rinsed washcloth across the neck of the sink, which is entirely free of scummy build up, “it ain’t broken, so that’s good. Reckon you’ll get a bit of a black eye on both sides for a while, though; a bit of ice in a towel will help with that. You hit the bottom of the couch square in the middle of your face, huh.”

  
  


Dave gives you a wince of a smile. “Hey, man, it had it comin’. Shouldn’t’a been talkin’ shit about my redstone skills.”

  
  


“Yea.” You lean forward and kiss him on the forehead, running your hands back through his hair. He leans into the touch. You love him. “You’ll be fine.”

  
  


You hope he loves you, too.

* * *

By the time Spring is coming to a close and the big graduation day is looming, Dave has a brand spankin’ new desktop tower and monitor in his bedroom.

  
  


When it first arrived, you’d been shocked, because it came straight down your driveway by none other than Miss Maggie, the delivery woman Hal sent after you during your first year here. When she’d winked and unloaded a very large box, you felt entirely out-maneuvered.

  
  


You’d assumed Hal would’ve sent another slim laptop, something you could go get at your leisure at your PO box. You were wrong.

  
  


Damn, you think, watching Dave click away with a mouse and a detached keyboard and everything. Maybe you should goad Hal more often if it means he’ll start sending bigger and better stuff. You wonder if his boyfriend is rich or something. You wonder if you’re jealous or pitying of him for going out into the world and immediately becoming somebody’s sugar baby. Probably jealous.

  
  


Yea you’re not gonna read into that.

  
  


You feel like such a Vantas when you hedgingly ask Dave, “Can I know who it is you’re typing to like the world’s gonna end if you don’t send one more message?”

  
  


Dave rapidly types a few more words then hits enter, swinging his head around to give you an expression with a lot of eyebrow action going on. “’s just some other kids I met on this Minecraft chat.”

  
  


You shift, fighting the urge to go blatantly spy on his screen. “You sure they’re really kids?”

  
  


“Well, I mean, probably.” Dave scratches at his chin and gives you a wide-eyed, fake look of innocence. “But one of them did send me a picture of this funny pink mushroom looking thing, and told me not to tell anybody else...”

  
  


Despite knowing he’s doing this on purpose, you can’t help but clench your fingers into the door jamb. It’s tough to swallow. You didn’t think it’d be this hard to respect his privacy, when push comes to tweenagery. _“Dave.”_

  
  


He gives you one of his little turd grins. “Oh my goddd, I’m just fuckin’ with you.”

  
  


“You had better be.” You shake your head at him. “Please go back to sacrificing your pony dolls at an altar built out of dead bug shells. It was way less worrying than this.”

  
  


“I mean, I can still do that...” But he looks sort of embarrassed, his flash pale face going that telltale red. You guess he _is_ getting a bit old for bargain bin contraptions and Goodwill toys. “But then who else would be here to troll flat Earth truthers on the Minecraft subreddit? Can’t be expecting my girl gardenGnostic to do it.”

  
  


You can’t help but shake your head at him again. “Boy, you better start actin’ right.” Nevertheless, you leave him alone with his new online pals who are all hopefully as young and friendly as he says they are. He’s at least leaving his door open.

  
  


After checking the weather app, you decide that today is a good day for hanging up laundry to dry.

  
  


When you pass by your open room, now outfitted with a cheap but usable full-sized bed placed near the window, you notice that Cal’s hanging around in here. Immediately, you fear for your new, plain sheets, but nothing appears to be anymore singed than you left it.

  
  


“Sup,” you say into the room. He does his mind-bending equivalent of turning around. You blink to clear the confusing visage from your head.

  
  


“HELLO.” And then he doesn’t do or say anything else.

  
  


Well. This is. Odd.

  
  


You rhythmically tap your fingers against the sides of your legs in permeating awkwardness as a silent stare-down occurs. You like to think it’s unexpected for both parties, and not just you.

  
  


Much like that night in the winter when you came out of the bathroom and saw a nearly complete man standing at the end of the hallway, his form unnaturally dodging the physicality of moonlight and of having legs to even stand on, you feel restless with the confrontation of him simply existing in the house.

  
  


It’s strange. He’s strange.

  
  


You look at each other, and you wonder what you think he wants to convey to you. What he holds back. Wonder if there’s anything at all he keeps secret, much like you do.

  
  


...You tilt your head coquettishly at him. “Caliborn. Oh, Caliborn.”

  
  


Caliborn, for the first time in a while, seems genuinely uncomfortable with what you’re doing and insinuating. It’s an intoxicating headrush. “WHAT? DEFECTIVE PEON. **WHAT!?** DO NOT GAZE AT ME. WITH WHAT YOU MISTAKENLY ASSUME. ARE KNOWING EYES. SPIT IT OUT. LEST I MAKE YOU.”

  
  


“For no reason whatsoever…” You bite at the tip of your thumb and squint sideways at him. “Do you happen to have some kind of stash of old money hidden anywhere in here? And would you be willing to part with it at grand intervals for tasks and actions?”

  
  


It’s hilarious, what he does. He manifests an arm just to throw it up in a gesture you can identify as one called ‘the fuck is wrong with you?’ That’s cute. You bet he picked that up from y’all.

  
  


You actually laugh. “Hey, look man, you never did pay me for that Big Sexy Adventure I spent all night drawing at your very excited request. It was only a suggestion, _verde._ No need to get all worked up.”

  
  


He tries to smother your mouth shut with one of Dave’s errant socks, and also makes your hip sizzle low at the same time. You damn near fall down the steps, but it’s allover got this funny, slapstick-esque comedy to it, so you aren’t even mad.

  
  


Six years ago, he was making you dodge knives. Now you’re out here running away from socks, giggling into your fist like a fucking moron. And he’s up here at night giving you damn belly rubs when you get a little sad over all the bad shit you’ve done, waiting for that final shoe to drop.

  
  


You don’t know what that all means. Not really.

* * *

The Elementary School graduation ceremony is quaint. Kankri cries multiple times, which you think is overkill considering these kids haven’t even tackled Health class or Trig yet, and hopefully haven’t been behind the wheel of a car, but you let him cling to your arm all the same.

  
  


All of the parents and families are sequestered together on terribly uncomfortable bleachers in the gym while the kids stand on a grounded stage and fidget. Rosa and her daughters are sitting a mere one row in front, and you can feel palpable waves of joy and pride coming off of Kankri when he’s not duly overcome with anxiety about the near future.

  
  


It’s loud. Not as contained as what you imagine a semi-dignified college graduation would be, but definitely more collected than the wild rut of High School students who feel simultaneous infinity and despair. You’ve already taken a delirious, logic-bereft amount of pictures of Dave simply standing in his cute little lurid yellow Field Day get up.

  
  


You take a video of the actual event, but you aren’t sure who for. You’ll send it to Hal, you suppose. Watch it later, when Dave is older and wiser and has hopefully left you for good. Maybe you’ll show Cal. But you don’t know.

  
  


Afterwards, you and Rosa take everybody out for ice cream. It’s at that local shop you once got all horndog for some random bus driver at. God, what a tragic past. You hope Dave and Karkat don’t remember it.

  
  


Dave crawls into your lap when it’s clear that not everybody can fit at one table. You don’t mind, but the way that he curls up and gets comfy once he’s done with his strawberry icecream, like it’s no big deal, reminds you of when he was tiny enough to make you nervous just to touch him. Like he’d shatter within a second under your killer grip.

  
  


You’re still a little afraid, but you know it won’t do anybody any good for you to show that. Especially not Dave. You’ve got to be his steady rock to lean on, if you’re capable at all of doing so. It’s all you can give him. Besides, he’ll grow up and realize better some day.

  
  


Rosa got Terezi a bouquet of flowers, the kinds that are heirloom grown and actually smell like flowers. She takes deep sniffs every few moments, uncaring of the physical beauty of them, but of what they can offer her senses. She’s obviously happy with her gift.

  
  


Kankri totally blows that from the water by pulling out an actual smart phone for Karkat, whose mouth does not close from its shocked gape for several minutes. It’s a few generations away from being completely new, but all smart phones these days are functionally the same with only a few key differences between each iteration beyond obsolescence manufactured by the companies that make them. So basically that means you won’t rain on his parade.

  
  


“Gimme somethin’, Bro,” Dave goads you with, despite knowing full well you don’t have shit for him. He’d asked you multiple times before y’all left and every time you were just like, ‘you got one whole new computer a few weeks ago, siddown.’

  
  


You lean down and blow a raspberry into his neck, or approximately there considering he got wise halfway to collision and tried to twist away. He screams like he’s been thrown into a swimming pool, but he starts laughing right after, so you assume you’re off the hook.

  
  


Dave rolls out of your lap and crawls under the picnic table until he pops up in Karkat’s lap, who squawks and shoves at him until they’re both detached and wandering away towards the grassy part of the park-like front to the shop. Dave is poking at Karkat’s phone while he yanks it away, yelling, “Lemme do it! Lalonde I _swear!!”_

  
  


Terezi gets wind that her amigos have weaseled away, and she practically throws herself off the bench to go running at them. They squeal and break apart as she plows between them like a battering ram.

  
  


Rosa calls after her to not forget her slim white cane, but mom gets ignored. Kankri coos at his secret mother and pats her arm, then promptly launches into a story about what Karkat did the other day that really rustled his jimmies yet ultimately confirms the moral of ‘kids, what’re you gonna do about them?’

  
  


Kanaya and Meulin already took the bus home after the ceremony. They claimed that they had ice cream at home and didn’t want to stay, but Meulin had this shifty look in her eyes that made every adult at the table presume that she’ll be sneaking off with her friends as soon as she’s unsupervised. Kanaya just looked bored.

  
  


You suppose that an Elementary School graduation isn’t exactly the highlight of their pre-teen and teenaged lives.

  
  


As you watch Dave, Karkat, and Terezi clumsily attempt to teach each other how to make flower crowns on the fly by using only the short clovers they find, you can’t imagine why. You don’t think you’d miss these little things for the world itself.

* * *

You’re washing the dishes. It’s summer. Karkat and Terezi are over, doing something so incredibly engaging behind your back that they’re all mostly silent. You bet it’s one of Terezi’s murder mystery podcasts, the ones you surprisingly got a little squeamish about and made them put in headphones for.

  
  


Karkat’s phone must ring – which, unlike Dave who personalizes each contact’s ring tone with no doubt ripped sound clips from online, he tends to leave on vibrate or silent – because you hear him say, “Hello?” in a very adult-ish phone-answering voice. It’s somewhat intimidating to hear someone so young already sound like they’re going to be making their own phone calls to doctor’s offices some day soon.

  
  


Karkat goes, “Uhh...” And that visage is dashed upon the linoleum. He sounds lost.

  
  


A few moments later, he’s at your side, looking up at you with furrowed eyebrows. You preemptively take your hands out of the water and fetch a towel as a foreboding feeling comes over you.

  
  


Karkat holds his phone out to you. His phone case is an economical OtterBox-looking thing, all classic, muted red. There’s a screen protector. “It’s Kankri. He says he needs to talk to you right now.”

  
  


You take the phone with damp hands. “Kankri?”

  
  


Kankri takes a deep breath that you can hear through the line. “Sollux is in the hospital. One of his friends apparently had their dad’s gun, and they were playing with it in the woods, and there was… an accident.”

  
  


Oh. Oh my god. A chill goes down your back like cold water. “Is he alive?” Wow that was a very wrong thing to say when you’ve got kids quickly crowding around you, eavesdropping on every word you say.

  
  


“Yes.” Oh thank fuck. “But he’s gone through surgery. Somehow, whoever this kid was managed to shoot him about in the face.”

  
  


You wince. “Which hospital,” you ask, even though that’s an idiotic thing to say considering there’s only one in this entire town.

  
  


Kankri tells you the name despite also knowing this, because sometimes he’s literally, actually a saint. You get out your own phone and type the address in, since you’ve never actually been there.

  
  


“I want you to take the kids to see him. I- I can’t get the time off work. Since Sollux isn’t a family member.”

  
  


“I’m sorry, Kan. Yea, I’ll take them. I’ll tell Sollux you wanted to come.”

  
  


“Thank you. Make sure he’s safe and- and that he knows we all care about him and hope he gets better soon.” A strange pause. “Please tell Mituna that I said hello.”

  
  


“Yea.” You quickly hang up and start herding kids. “Okay, everybody get whatever you think you’ll need, snacks and entertainment stuff, we’re heading to the hospital. Sollux got hurt, but he’s going to be okay. We just need to be there for him while he’s recovering, alright?”

  
  


Karkat nods, looking pale. Dave clings to Karkat’s arm and reaches out for Terezi’s too. Terezi gives you a jaunty salute with the hand that isn’t being crushed, but there’s a sad twist to her smile. Like maybe she isn’t surprised.

  
  


The drive to the hospital is a quiet one, only occasionally broken by the kids mentioning names and recently learned facts about Sollux’s condition, likely via Karkat’s new phone. You hear ‘Eridan’ at least three times, and it dawns on you that that’s not a new name to you. The foreboding feeling chases you down the road like a pack of hungry coyotes.

  
  


You walk up into the hospital and remember that you hate hospitals. Long-forgotten visions of Hal, small and broken and missing key parts of himself while a machine breathed for him those days before he opened his mouth himself, rapidly fling themselves at your brain. You push them away, and step up to the counter right as a familiar figure comes striding down the nearest hallway.

  
  


It’s Captor Papa. Or whatever his name is, you don’t know. You’re not gonna ask. His face is pinched, forehead more lined than you last saw it, although that could be because of the nasty fluorescent lighting.

  
  


He gets you back into the room where Sollux is, pediatric ward or post-surgery ward or something, you aren’t paying much attention. He must not be great under stress, because all he does is jerk his head at you, expecting your small flock of miscellaneous kids to readily follow you. To their credit, they do.

  
  


You stand at the precipice between the hallway and the room, barely having any time to peer in and see Sollux’s pale face swaddled in white bandages before a large force barrels into you and pushes you back out into the hallway.

  
  


The kids go in without you, not even looking back. Captor Papa simply raises an eyebrow, then goes in as well.

  
  


Mituna ungently deposits you into a hallway chair, something so uncomfortably shaped you could classify it as a human right’s violation, and plops down next to you. “Hi Dirk.”

  
  


Your mouth opens, but it takes you am embarrassing amount of time to reply. “Hi. Mituna. Why did you do that.”

  
  


He licks his lips an inordinate amount of times. “Sol ssaid not to let you in because...” He shrugs. He smiles. “He’ss funny like that, think he might uh, might like you.”

  
  


You don’t know what to do with that. Voices float out from Sollux’s room, the one you’re barred from entering due to unsaid reasons because the guy you’re stuck with cannot articulate what’s most important.

  
  


It sparks a thought. You turn to him and say, “Kankri says hi.”

  
  


The constant smile drops from his face faster than you can think ‘lead balloon.’ “Oh.” He turns away, eyes mostly obscured behind his thick fringe. His shirt is bumblebee yellow, and has some vaporwave-esque Japanese on it. He begins to bite at his nails. His lips are very dry and cracked.

  
  


From inside Sollux’s room, someone is audibly crying. You don’t think you have the strength to make out who it is.

  
  


After a few uncomfortable minutes in which you literally question the meaning of your existence, which is simply the most natural course of events to occur in a hospital in your experience, Mituna turns back to you with his smile once more in place. It’s a little calming, you guess, how he seems to stay the same.

  
  


And then he opens his mouth and goes, “Did you- do you wannaa know why I’m like this?” What the fuck. “I jumped- I- Sol was in front of bus, and I jumped and I got him out of the way and then I got hit.”

  
  


What the _fuck._

  
  


“I don’t remember it,” he tells you. “But I wass in the hosspital too.” He parts his hair in a practiced, if jittery movement, and shows you a graphic scar that would otherwise be hidden by his thick, black locks.

  
  


You involuntarily lean away before catching yourself. “That was very brave of you.”

  
  


He surprises you by going, “Was it?” He fiddles with the thick headphones around his neck, as if he wants to put them on, but doesn’t. “Don’t you think it jusst, compli- complicates thingss? When you do sstuf like that.” He twists his wrist about esoterically, a strangely fluid move for someone so disjointed. “The aftermath. There was- I was-” He paps the side of his face and goes quiet.

  
  


Slowly, you say, “Yea. I guess it does complicate things, when you decide to do something like that for another person.” You see Hal in your mind’s eye, helpless and angry and ungrateful. You don’t think you blame him for being any of those things. “Though it could be argued that you didn’t decide to complicate things at all. You just cared a lot, and you reacted without thinking first.”

  
  


Mituna’s smile stretches slow and wide, like melting butter, and you’re slightly stunned with the geniality of it. “Yea. Yea that ssounds uh, uhm, hehe. You’re a smart guy, Dirk. Never thought of it like that.”

  
  


You think you huff some distant equivalent of a laugh. You go, “You’re a smart guy, too, Mituna,” even though you don’t believe a word of it until you actually say it.

  
  


He grins at you with all his teeth. A few are missing.

  
  


“I-” He bows upward in his seat like a seal trying to do a trick, fighting with one of his deep cargo pockets with his entire fucking life with how he’s going at it. It’s a little disturbing to watch, but he finally yanks something that might’ve been a wallet several decades and rounds of duct tape ago. “Pic of my gorl.”

  
  


He reverently folds open the wallet, revealing to you a photograph of a girl wearing red sunglasses lounging in a sun-drenched jeep, her jet black hair askew from wind and as frozen in time as the joy on her face. Beside her is some kind of instrument in its black case. In her lap is a skateboard with indistinct and old graffiti on its back.

  
  


“Latula,” he tells you with immeasurable pride, and you try to get over your misconceptions about how a guy like him could have a girlfriend. You’re the worst. “She’s in Cali. Going to-” He makes a frustrated noise, then seems to abandon what he was saying. “Getting her neuroscience degree. Takess a long time.”

  
  


“She looks nice,” you say, for a lack of other things to.

  
  


“She is!” He replaces the wallet into a totally different pocket than where it came out from. “We sstarted dating before, before… yea. Sshe taught me how to uh, skate. Skate or die.” He grins again, like he’s said an inside joke that he still finds funny.

  
  


If you’re being honest, you can’t imagine this guy skating. Not safely, anyways. “That’s cool.”

  
  


“The coolest,” he instantly shoots back with. “I- you know, we- uh, we could skate or die some time.”

  
  


Well when he words it like that… “I don’t know how to skate, sorry,” you try to let him down with. “But thank you.”

  
  


“I- I- I-” He gets frustrated and wound up at the same time. “I. Can. Teach. You.” He punctuates each word by pounding his fist onto his knee, like it takes a lot of effort for him to sound it out so clearly.

  
  


You make an uncomfortable, non-verbal noise, the kind you only make around Caliborn or Dave, at a push. You’re instantly flooded with shame for reacting like that, but, well… You’ve seen this dude trip on seemingly nothing. Multiple times. He literally has brain damage. You feel like if you let him ‘teach you how to skate’, you’re going to end up a smear on some concrete half-pipe somewhere, your only witness being an enthusiastic weaboo with the countenance of a permanent sweet sixteener.

  
  


You give it some thought, staring blankly at Mituna’s hopeful expression.

  
  


Actually, that sounds exactly like the kind of death a scumbag like you would deserve. You’re fucking sold.

  
  


“Sure,” you say. Mituna fist-pumps into the air several times and hisses out some dirty, expletive riddled phrase in response, and you feel like you just heard something blasphemous.

  
  


Somebody laughs from within the room, making you belatedly remember exactly where you are. Mituna is an unexpectedly engaging conversation partner, though perhaps it’s mostly due to the sheer amount of unpredictable stress he induces within you.

  
  


His face lights up even more, impossibly. “Sol,” he bites out, before rocketing into the room without a backwards glance.

  
  


Well.

  
  


Captor Papa leaves the room, one hand over his mouth and a quick step to his movements. He doesn’t even look at you. He stalks the short way down to the turn in the hallway, and disappears around the corner.

  
  


Since you’re apparently not allowed in the room, so says the occupant in the bed, you satisfy your curiosity by creeping on Captor Papa’s trail.

  
  


You find him leaning only a few feet around the turn, his figure crumpled against the placid walls of muted whites and browns and blues. He’s cradling his face fully now, body shaking minutely with quiet sobs.

  
  


As you’re about to quietly back away, something in the air shifts. His neck twists fast, and he looks right at you. His eyes are all forbidden redness and violence, like he’s been looking for somebody to blame. Somebody to take it all out on.

  
  


On an instinct you wish you didn’t have, you put your hands up and your head down. You don’t know this guy. He’s always been both withdrawn yet overbearing, and his kids don’t seem afraid of him, but that doesn’t mean anything.

  
  


When he doesn’t speak or move further, a flush to his cheeks that could either be from rage or from embarrassment, you retreat.

  
  


You intend to return to your chair of banishment, only when you get back to the previous hallway, Mituna is spinning around in the middle like some kind of madman. He abruptly halts when he sees you, and zooms forward faster than you’re comfortable with. You brace for impact.

  
  


He’s all explosive force and manic gleam of the eye when he grabs you by the arm and says right in your face, “Sol’s on drugs,” then physically pulls you into Sollux’s room.

  
  


You get in there and Sollux is breathlessly laughing at something Karkat said that you didn’t hear. His face, from the top of his nose to his forehead, is wrapped in gauze. Wires are hooked up to his body. Something beeps.

  
  


He’s blind. Probably forever. He got shot in the damn face, or close enough. Karkat told his enraptured entourage on the way over that Kankri said that Sollux fell down right onto a rock, too, busting up his mouth.

  
  


“I didn’t even tell him the ending yet...” Karkat argues, but doesn’t seem too put out that he’s apparently the funniest guy around.

  
  


“It’s, it’s like...” Sollux stiltedly says around a laugh. “It’s like… Card _Captor_ Sakura.”

  
  


Mituna, who is still next to you, begins laughing like he’s legitimately dying. Karkat throws his hands up once he realizes Sollux wasn’t listening to his story in the first place. Dave puts a consolatory hand on his shoulder. Terezi slaps him on his back really hard.

  
  


It seems Sollux is on drugs. And has also lost his lisp. His open, smiling mouth reveals a few of his previously crooked and oversized teeth are now completely missing.

  
  


“Eridan’s daddy’s gonna pay for my dental,” Sollux giggles. He lifts up his paper cup of water, mostly empty from how it all stays inside with his swaying, and crows, “Feferi’s not gonna date ch’ya now, bitch!” He slings it back like a shot. The kids all laugh harder.

  
  


Damn. Kid loses his eyes and teeth all in one day and he suddenly becomes the life of the party.

  
  


You hope he gets to stay this happy once the drugs stop coming and reality sets in.

  
  


Captor Papa comes back into the room, crowding you and Mituna against the wall. It’s uncomfortable, but you trick yourself into not making it weird by never looking at him. He and his son are somehow even taller than you are, and you seriously hate it, hate being bracketed in by two string bean men with avidly juxtapositioned personalities while the ominous presence of the hospital chokes the life out of you.

  
  


“Is my dad in here?” Sollux asks sloppily after he’s done laughing at the newest, randomest thing.

  
  


“Sollux!” Terezi cries in dramatic shock. “You have a dad? When did you plan on telling us this important information, young man!?”

  
  


Sollux smiles and giggles before steeling his face with surprising facial control, considering the circumstances. “My dirty secret is out. Terezi, you infallible genius, what will you solve next?”

  
  


“I think I’ll solve the Declaration of Independence,” Terezi announces.

  
  


Sollux laughs some more.

  
  


You begin to palm your forehead to try and find some form of relief.

  
  


Captor Papa picks his way through the congregation of children at his son’s bedside and gently, tenderly pets at Sollux’s hand. Sollux quiets down. His dad murmurs something to him.

  
  


As if on some innate response, Sollux breaks down into hushed whimpers and what you’re sure would be tears if only he had the means to shed them anymore.

  
  


“Dirk isn’t here, is he?” Sollux unexpectedly asks. All eyes are suddenly on you. Captor Papa says something else. Sollux crumples in on himself. “Oh, no...”

  
  


Captor Papa looks back at you with what you can interpret is serious intent to boot your ass out. You’ll gladly go even without the prerogative because you frankly don’t wanna be here anymore, but you don’t understand what you’ve done to warrant this sort of reaction from Sollux.

  
  


Mituna slings a long arm around your shoulder, his hand coming up to nearly slap you in the face. It, disconcertingly, smells of rubber.

  
  


“He’s jusst embarrassed,” he tells you in what he must think is a covert whisper, but in reality the entire room can hear. “He thinkss you’re, uh, cool and he, uh, didn’t want you to ssee him like this. Or something. Yea.”

  
  


“Shut up, Tuna!” Sollux yells from his bed, his voice cracking with emotion. Captor Papa’s glare gets more pronounced.

  
  


At that point, a nurse comes in and makes everybody except immediate family leave, either because visiting hours are over or because nobody could stand this clusterfuck going on anymore and decided to show the guests some pity by giving them an excuse to ollie out.

  
  


You drive each excess kid home. If they left anything important at your house, they don’t seem to give a fuck, because their ‘important’ things are still childish stuff like toys and games and packs of gum. They can just come over and get it some other day.

  
  


Dave is in a strange mood when you finally get him home. He pretty much immediately enters a three-way call between himself, Karkat, and Terezi, and you leave him to it. If he doesn’t wanna talk about stuff like hospitals and death and serious injuries that lead to disabilities with anybody but his friends, then you won’t push. You can ask him how he feels later, once he’s processed it with like minds.

  
  


You briefly explain to Caliborn why you were out for so long, but he was apparently eavesdropping on your initial flight anyways. He doesn’t seem to overly care either way – he’s already gotten his ‘energy’ from having so many kids over.

  
  


What does he care if some boy he’s never met got shot?

* * *

Inevitably, you end up at the Captor household once Sollux is released from the hospital.

  
  


Mituna makes good on teaching you how to skateboard, much to your fathomless regret. You realize this when, instead of calmly walking in the door with your troupe of kids, you are practically carried back out before your foot has touched the living room carpet.

  
  


You’re getting deja vu, here.

  
  


While the kids all escape upstairs to Sollux’s room, where they’ve given themselves the task of entertaining him in between his drug-induced sleeps, you are stuck out here on the baking asphalt of a quiet suburban street. Mituna grins at you, all long limbs that refuse to be still and over-excited, disorganized chatter. He waves his skateboard around like a baton.

  
  


Captor Papa chooses to sit on the porch and drink something alcoholic while reading from his tablet, as if he trusts his bedbound son more than his upright one. Or maybe it’s you he doesn’t trust.

  
  


He doesn’t offer the either of you a beer. It brings you back to when he insinuated you were some teen-aged nobody, washing up on his son’s doorstep with a brood of kids, none of them looking exactly like they’d be _your_ kid. You conclude that this and that may or may not be a power move, and then further decide that you’d rather not get involved with it.

  
  


Mituna regales to you a hard to understand history of his skateboarding achievements and then encourages you to just get on the board and go. Sounds simple.

  
  


It’s not simple.

  
  


Like with rollerblading, you underestimate the entropy of wheels and friction on ground, moved by force, and overestimate your ability to damn well stay standing.

  
  


You somehow manage to wipe out pretty fantastically. Mituna laughs at you immediately, because you’re positive he’s no pure soul no matter how childishly he acts, but he runs over to help you up either way.

  
  


Unthinkingly, you take his impossibly sweaty hand before you can consider that perhaps the man with balance and motor issues cannot lift you, and that this will end with two people on the ground instead of just one, and also possibly with Captor Papa choking you to death like a dog in need of being put down before you can so much as stand up first to get a head start.

  
  


However, you’re proven so very wrong when you’re practically launched into the air a second later by the sheer force he rips you from the concrete with. Your fucking shoulder blade aches.

  
  


Mituna’s toothy smile has a bit of tongue sticking out in between the gaps. He gives you a thumbs up.

  
  


You give him a thumbs up back, and decide with finality that you think you have a love-hate relationship with his entire family.

  
  


By the time the sun is dipping and the kids are filing out of the house with reports of Sollux being truly down and out for the night, you’ve successfully learned how to skate without falling for at least a few minutes, even if it requires Mituna to jog beside you the entire time with one of his hands held out like he’s teaching a toddler how to ride their first tricycle.

  
  


You have no idea how to turn. Mituna, aflush with reckless adulation, doesn’t seem inclined to teach you how yet. Tells you that you can learn next time, sealing your fate.

  
  


His dad finishes his drink and goes back inside to check on his other son.

* * *

It’s not long after Karkat’s eleventh birthday that school starts again. Dave’s first day of Middle School goes alright, if he’s to be believed.

  
  


He’s got all of the classes he has with his friends circled on his syllabus. The red highlighter is for Karkat, the green/blue mixed together is for Terezi (who insisted that Dave put both green and blue on hers, per the lack of an appropriately teal highlighter. Dave doesn’t seem to think this is weird or unnecessary, so you don’t say anything), and the bright pink is for classes with both.

  
  


There’s only one circled in bright pink – Pre-Algebra. There’s two circled in ‘teal’, but with how his schedule is set up, those classes only occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A rotation. There’s multiple across the week circled in red, which he seems relieved about.

  
  


“I mean, I dunno about Terezi, but I refuse to sit in any history class without Karkat,” Dave tells you seriously as he shovels broccoli mac n’ cheese down his throat. He sure is hungry after only one day. “If he doesn’t interrupt the teacher at least once a day with an on point fact check, I’ll eat my shades.”

  
  


“That’s reasonable.” You spoon some of your mac onto his plate. He gobbles it up. Wowza. You think you might need to start adding more snacks onto your grocery list, sneak them into his bag or something.

  
  


“Hell yea it is, bro.”

  
  


These days, especially if Terezi is in tow, the kids like to go to Sollux’s house more often than they go to anybody else’s. It’s like Caliborn’s old news by now, despite being a creepy ghost in a creepy old house, isolated in the woods. Bet he feels like a chump.

  
  


You get dragged into more of Mituna’s torture sessions on his four-wheeled device, hardly ever giving you the chance to see Sollux. Not that you think he wants to see you again, though.

  
  


Captor Papa likes to dourly observe you as you struggle to achieve a passable kickflip under Mituna’s lacking tutelage, but they day you do manage it on some kind of fluke, the way Mituna goes crazy and practically picks you up in his excitement sorta makes you feel pretty great. Like his unpleasant father boring holes into your head every other week of the summer is pennies next to the million bucks of working hard to accomplish something and then getting enthusiastically congratulated for it.

  
  


Like, Sollux stupidly playing with guns alone in the woods with some entitled rich kid aside, it’s a nice summer.

  
  


Dave seems happy with how his sixth grade year is shaping up and he spends a lot of time chattering about both his IRL friends and his online ones, kids placed across the globe. One’s in Washington, one’s in New York, and one’s in the Pacific somewhere. Karkat’s even mentioned that he talks to them, too, but you can tell that they were Dave’s friends first.

  
  


Caliborn, you find, is increasingly in some kind of undefined mood, but not necessarily a bad one. He tends to simply hover in the background in full view, as if he’s letting his housemates know that he’s watching. Ever since you started sleeping in your room instead of the couch downstairs, you see him or hear him nearly every night before you drift off into dreams you cannot remember.

  
  


It’s strange, how normality settles into the bones. Makes you complacent. How calls from a brother you once shied away from talking to at all become commonplace. How your house is full of voices more often than not.

  
  


It’s strange. How quickly normality can be replaced with chaos.

* * *

It’s newly Autumn, but still pleasantly warm.

  
  


You’re outside, turning the compost pile, Caliborn a tick on your shoulder with his occasional stinging touch to get you to turn around, when you hear a rapidly approaching scream coming from the woods.

  
  


“AAAAAAAAAAAA -” Karkat bursts from the treeline at a dead run. “MY FIRST KISS WAS MEANT FOR MY ONE TRUE LOVE AND FUTURE WIFE, TEREZI PYROPE, OBVIOUSLY!!!!!!”

  
  


Hot damn – you left Dave alone for five minutes and he went right for the money.

  
  


Karkat runs straight past you, into the house, his face red and possibly wet from tears. Confused, you drop your shovel and search for your kid.

  
  


Dave comes miserably toeing his way out from behind the trees a few moments later, eyes pointed towards the ground. His face is also red and possibly wet with tears.

  
  


Oh no. You are not equipped to deal with this, emotionally or otherwise.

  
  


From behind you, supernatural heat disappears, like Caliborn has come to the same conclusion as you and fucked off as soon as possible. Pussy.

  
  


As Dave slowly approaches, you go, “Hey,” and then say nothing else, because you haven’t yet grasped the severity of the situation yet.

  
  


Dave looks up at you with a tilt to his brow and mouth that you don’t like, but decide to graciously ignore. He’s been humiliated, no doubt. He can get away with a little attitude.

  
  


“You two okay?” You ask in the end. Dave shrugs. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

  
  


“Isn’t it obvious,” he mumbles.

  
  


“...I guess it kinda is.” You look into your own house like it’s a bomb shelter that hasn’t been opened in a few hundred years and there’s potentially radioactive, massive roaches inside waiting for you. “You wanna go talk to him, or should I?”

  
  


When Dave doesn’t respond, you pick your gloves off and throw them down, proceeding into the still open front door.

  
  


Karkat isn’t far – he’s perched on the couch, leaning forward with his face in his hands, one knee rapidly popping up and down. As soon as he hears your creaky footsteps on the old wood floors, his head shoots up.

  
  


Yup. You’ve got crying pre-teens afoot. That can’t be good.

  
  


“You doin’ okay?” You ask him. He turns away from you.

  
  


Despite seeming increasingly reluctant, Dave comes up behind you, hands limp at his side. “Hey. Kat.”

  
  


Karkat turns around and glares something nasty. “Hey. Lalonde.”

  
  


Dave winces, then walks around the side of the couch, but doesn’t quite sit down. “So… I sure went and kissed you, huh.”

  
  


“Let’s just- _whatever,_ okay? Let’s just pretend like it never happened.” Karkat wipes the tears from his face, and in Dave’s expression you can see his heart break in real time.

  
  


“Okay,” Dave says. “Sorry.”

  
  


Karkat waves him off. His leg is still pumping up and down, his brow furrowed in concentration. “You know I like Terezi.”

  
  


“Man, everybody knows you like her,” Dave mumbles back mullishly, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You said it’s whatever tho’, right? So it’s whatever. Let’s just forget about it.”

  
  


Contradictory, Karkat seems displeased at this. He bites out a, “Sure. Whatever.” And the living room descends into silence.

  
  


You don’t know what you’re doing here. You feel like you’re watching a tragedy unfold, but you’re stuck in the audience and can do nothing about it. The show will go on with or without your inactive participation.

  
  


You end up taking Karkat home earlier than planned once it’s apparent that neither of them are comfortable with the other today. Dave doesn’t ride along.

  
  


To Kankri, you say you don’t quite understand what happened, and it’s the truth.

* * *

You’re in the bathroom, doing what people do on toilets (you’re shitting), when Caliborn is suddenly there in between one blink and the next.

  
  


You startle embarrassingly badly, flinching back onto the toilet, several half-expletives making their way out before you get marginal control of yourself. “Holy shit bruh, you _d__on’t _spy on me in the bathroom! Fuck -”

  
  


“AS IF I WOULD WANT TO!” What sounds like every single door in the house opens and slams shut all at once, including the door to the room you’re in. Breezier than you’re comfortable with. “THERE IS. A PROBLEM.”

  
  


“Okay.” _Please get out. _You place your hands as casually as possible in front of your crotch. “I’m sure whatever problem it is, it can wait long enough for me to -”

  
  


“THE DECORATIVE. INFANTILE. MEAT PUPPET. IS MISSING.”

  
  


“...Okay...” You wonder if you could get away with standing up to wipe your ass or if Caliborn will blind you in retaliation for unwillingly mooning him. “I did say that he could go into the woods as long as he was back around sunset. He’s still upset about what happened with Karkat. He deserves the alone time –”

  
  


Several objects in the room rattle at a furious rate. You instinctively stretch and reach out a hand to stop Dave’s Hello Kitty rinsing cup from falling to the floor.

  
  


“**IMBECILE.”** The poltergeist bellows this insult so loudly that the lights flicker. You give up on your fragile modesty to reflexively cover your ears. “HE HAS GONE BEYOND MY TERRORTORY. HE IS DEEP WITHIN THE WOODS, OUTSIDE OF MY REACH.

  
  


“HE IS IN DANGER.” That gets you sweating. Though it might also be from how close Caliborn leans over top of you, his translucent barrel of a ‘chest’ showing actual definitions of a body part for once, musculature of the uncanny valley sort standing out. It’s distracting, and you have no pants on. “YOU HAVE LIVED A CUSHY LIFE. IN THESE WOODS. IN MY TERRORTORY. BUT YOU DO NOT TRULY KNOW WHAT LIES DEEP WITHIN THE PINES.”

  
  


“A’ight. I believe you.” You stand, finding yourself jittery as you hurriedly clean off. You accidentally step right over your pants, only managing to pull up your boxers, stop, turn around, look down at your crumpled sweatpants, flap your hands a few times indecisively, then abandon them. There’s no time. If you need an excuse, then nobody will be in the woods anyways, and it’s hardly cold out. You’ll just wear that big flannel jacket.

  
  


In your panicked state of mind, you clearly envision pairs of eyes stacked on top of each other, peeking in through your little brother’s bedroom window. Watching you stargaze. Rendering your guard dog cold.

  
  


Caliborn literally shadows you as you hurry throughout the house, his silhouette crowding yours. The only light that permeates is his unearthly glow and the setting sun piercing between the tall trees and flitting through window panes. _If only he did not cast such a gloomy glow,_ you think as you hastily tie on your boots, _he could be a proper flashlight._

  
  


You open the front door, and surprisingly Caliborn is still doggedly attached to the darkness your body casts, the two of your shapes mingling on the floor.

  
  


“I’ll be back,” you tell him, despite not understanding quite why you’ve chosen to say that in particular. “He can’t have gone too far. He knows better. I hope. Leave the door unlocked.”

  
  


He follows you out into the front yard, though his presence fades. It doesn’t leave you feeling safer, exactly, though it does let you have the indulgence of thinking ‘I am not alone in this,’ for however brief a thought it is.

  
  


“DIRK STRIDER.” You pause at the line between the dusty front driveway and the thick of trees, a little deer path worn down by both its namesake and by Dave throughout all these years. “YOU **WILL** COME BACK TO ME.”

  
  


You toss him a mild expression of haughtiness. “This is literally our house.” And then you pick your way into the woods, belatedly fishing a flashlight from your jacket pocket.

  
  


A crow cries overhead.

* * *

At some point, you start running.

  
  


You don’t know what urges you, beyond the obvious. It would be more logical to thoroughly comb the area, searching for Dave’s pale pink Autumn jacket with the faux fur hood lining. But logic quickly leaves you when you find yourself alone and afraid, not for yourself, but for someone you don’t know the location of right now.

  
  


You hear things, and see things. You dismiss them every time you confirm that they are not Dave, and at any other time, this would be a terrible oversight, but your breath is coming shorter and your heart is beating out of its chest in worry.

  
  


If you can’t find him… You’ll go crazy. Utterly mad. Point blank. There would be no stopping you.

  
  


Although you wish you’d done it for him in the first place, you know now that you would kill for Dave.

  
  


Far into the woods, deeper than you’ve ever gone before on your birthday hikes with Dave, you hear something.

  
  


On nothing more than a hunch, you jog towards it. You’re not the most patient nor quiet of heroes right now, but you never claimed to be a hero in the first place.

  
  


You spy pink. Your head whips around and your heels dig into the ground so fast, you think you get momentary whiplash.

  
  


Desperately searching with your eyes, you flit between several trees again, trying to find the color– _There._

  
  


“Dave!” You call out like an amateur, your starring role of this horror show. He whips around to look at you, eyes wide and frightened. “Dave! Come here!”

  
  


He starts towards you, but there’s something wrong with him, something clunky about the way he lifts his feet and puts them down, like his joints are connected with gum instead of ligaments.

  
  


You run towards him despite being fearful that you’ll lose him between the thick, dark trees once more. This deep, the light of whatever may be left of the setting sun does not permeate, and your artificial flashlight is all you have, but it is reliant on how well you point it.

  
  


Against all pessimistic odds screaming at you, you reach him, gathering him up into your arms with much more force than you normally would. He’s clammy, and pale, eyes all strange and agog with awe, or maybe mindlessness brought on by fear.

  
  


Your vision, trained by generations of human beings to see patterns in the wild for their own survival, adjusts.

  
  


You see the eyes looking back at you.

  
  


Unwillingly, your mouth drops open, and a truly horrified, thin noise escapes you before anything else.

  
  


You deeply regret calling this entity something as inelegant and humorous as ‘The Raccoon Monster’, because here, it hardly fits. It mocks the danger you are now in.

  
  


It moves towards you on what you think may be limbs made of spindly roots.

  
  


Grabbing Dave by the arm, you croak at him to, “Run,” and at first, he does.

  
  


As you try to get him to keep pace alongside you, clumsily making your way back to where you’re almost certain you’ve come from, guided only by the heat in your heart and the caw in your ears you don’t understand the origins of but refuse to question now, the glassy nothingness of his gaze overtakes him, and he begins to falter.

  
  


You pick him up, practically slinging him into your arms, dropping your flashlight in the process. You think you can hear the reinforced plastic of it _pop_ from somewhere too close behind you, like it’s been run over by a racecar.

  
  


It sounds like the earth is being ripped up. You don’t dare try to look back, certain that it’ll be your unmaking, your final mistake.

  
  


Every footstep is liable to fly out from under you, slipping on a stray, wet leaf or from supernatural means of tripping you. Every breath is waiting to choke you, bring you down onto your face so as to leave your back open for attack. Every jittery, adrenaline-fueled moment lost to the craze is one that could also be spent dropping Dave and not even realizing it until you’ve gone yards ahead, like a prey animal leaving the weakest behind before it dawns on them that that’s their foal being eaten alive.

  
  


In a familiar, mindless mantra, your thought process goes as such, from most important to least:

  
  


_Don’t trip,_ you beg your body, _don’t trip don’t trip don’t trip please god don’t trip._

  
  


_Don’t drop him,_ you command your arms, which hold Dave in an awkward, painful position, but you can’t find the coordination within yourself to move him at all, and so your muscles cramp and lock down. _Don’t drop him don’t drop him don’t drop him don’t drop him don’t you dare drop him._

  
  


_Caliborn._ You wish this one weren’t here. _Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn._ That feeling of wanting for a presence you know you shouldn’t. _Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn._ With what little reasoning left, you consider: If Caliborn has seemingly come from nowhere when he is mentally mentioned in all but name, then surely he’ll come when called. He has to.

  
  


_Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn Caliborn CALIBORN CALIBORN CALIBORNCALIBORNCALIBORN –_

  
  


Impossibly, you breach the clearing at the same place you went in.

  
  


Dave’s foot snags on a branch and snaps him limply to the side, yourself following him in an attempt to keep hold.

  
  


It trips you with an earthy, dirty wire.

  
  


You fall fantastically – ass over teakettle, someone’s shoe flying off, the world a rounded kaleidoscope of sky-limbs-shuteye-monster, before you roll to a stop too late to even consider standing up again.

  
  


The Raccoon Monster is nothing of what its name suggests, you think in terrified delirium. It’s a writhing mass of roots that function as both limbs and body, trapping its many eyes in between the shadows they make.

  
  


With no time left to scream, you throw yourself upon Dave’s unconscious body as an ineffective shield.

  
  


You smell smoke before you hear– no, _feel_ the malice of it roar.

  
  


Unwittingly, once again drawn by that insatiable human need to witness morbid curiosities, you unpeel your eyes from Dave’s shoulder and look up in time to get hit in the face with a flash of searing heat.

  
  


There is what appears to be a massive bonfire occurring in your driveway, a figure trapped within that positively exudes hateful energies, its limb-like structures reaching out into the air, only to get even further consumed as the oxygen floods in. It dances in death. It’s horrible.

  
  


In front of you stands Caliborn. His jaw, full of those golden, sharp teeth, is gaping wide open. Your vision has gone blurry and pulsing with the adrenaline, but you’re certain that you can see bright blue fire being tornado’d away from the burning monster and down his furnace throat, the fires within him burning hotter than the fires outside.

  
  


Like a pleased hound, his unnaturally long, dark, forked tongue lolls out of one side.

  
  


He’s the Devil. Why were you ever so stupid as to forget this.

  
  


You think his eyes may meet yours.

  
  


With the sensation of an old box TV getting the plug pulled on it before it has been properly turned off, you instantaneously black out.

* * *

In the darkness is silence, not unlike dying. There are no thoughts in your head, because your head is convinced you have no such brain to think thoughts with right now.

  
  


Despite this, and despite darkness, and despite silence, a tall man dressed in a sharp, colorful suit approaches you. Wherever you are. Behind him in a vague shape is another man, much more familiar for reasons you do not currently posses, but his back is turned to you both. All you can identify him with is his white shirt and the pommel of a sword gripped limply in one hand. His hat is askew.

  
  


When the gentleman in the suit speaks, you find yourself unable to hear him at first, because he is whispering so lowly. For all he appears to be an ordinary man, you cannot perceive any higher than his wide set shoulders. It makes you distantly aware that you have no neck for which to bend, or eyes to raise.

  
  


_Whisper, whisper. _“...me in...”

  
  


No mouth nor tongue to say “What?” with.

  
  


_Whispers,_ “Let me in...”

  
  


You become aware of a door, and a house, somewhere that is near but not directly in line with the man. If you had a body, you’d say you would be standing in front of the door with your back to it, almost as if you’re barring anyone from passing through it. From these men.

  
  


But you don’t. You don’t have a body.

  
  


_Whispers, _“Let me in, Dirk.” _Whispers,_ “It’s my house.”

  
  


_That’s wrong, _you think very loudly, so loudly that it might as well become words. “That’s wrong,” you say, don’t whisper, “this is my house.”

  
  


_Whisper, whisper._ “This is _our_ house.” _Whispers,_ “Let me in, Dirk.”

  
  


You falter. That sounds correct – you do recall living with someone else. “This is Dave’s house.”

  
  


_Whisper, whisper. _“Ours.”

  
  


A cool, soft touch to the right side of your hip. That’s right – the hip bone, fat, muscle, and skin that does not exist. What a strange sensation, how this man grounds you slowly like dropping colored oil into a vast nothingness that soon reveals itself to be perfectly clear water. It willingly accepts and disperses the orange, the green, the red. Tainted.

  
  


“It’s our house,” _whispers,_ “Let me in, Dirk.”

  
  


That sounds correct, yet also incorrect. You see, with no eyes, the door. With hands you do not have, you turn the handle.

  
  


“Let me in.”

  
  


You open the door a sliver. Light spills out to blind the corneas you do not have.

  
  


“Let me in.”

  
  


A presence at your back, soft and cool, but warming, becoming harsher, more demanding. Fire curling through broken windows, smoke inhaling wood and bone. The snake twines up your hip, your waist, your chest. Up goes its twin from your stomach, bathed in acid, crawls, breaching your throat until it breathes smog.

  
  


“Let me in, Dirk. Let me in, Dirk.”

  
  


He’s a roar in your eardrums that cannot translate vibration into sound due to a lack of existing.

  
  


“LET ME IN, DIRK.”

  
  


The snakes touch noses, their tails at opposite sides of your navel. The never-ending entrapment is complete.

  
  


“LET ME IN. **DIRK STRIDER.”**

  
  


Far behind you in a fading not-distance, the quiet, familiar man shakes his head and walks away.

  
  


You open the door. In floods the green, sugary syrup that burns as it’s dribbled down your throat where the snake lazily moves to the side to allow it, and it scares you, how you don’t choke. You hear Jane’s melodious laughter coming from nowhere at all – not the unique laugh she makes when she’s pulled off a successful jape, but the one that happens when she laughs unexpectedly, with no control to stop herself.

  
  


It’s a struggle, to see through eyes that are not yours, but this body appears to be using its red arms to pick up a child. Not too young, nor too old, but a child that could appear on a stock image and be ambiguously aged from eight to twelve. Whoever they are – blonde, pale with dirt smudges on their face – they seem to be unconscious.

  
  


The body stands back up. Its brief view is of a ruined and burned driveway, bits and pieces of smoldering firewood scattered all about in the deep blue light of late evening. It then turns, human loot in tow, to enter the house, whose door is wide open. It’s dark inside, and not on fire at all, but a strange light permeates the room that may or may not be emanating from the body, which now shuffles from the door, to the stairs, and then up. It has some trouble with the steps. It takes a long time, according to you – whoever you are, and wherever you are.

  
  


It enters a room on the second floor. It uses its red hands to place the child down onto sheets with printed cartoon characters, some animals of which the species you cannot easily identify, and the act of trying aches somehow, so you give up without much of a fight. That felt good, for some reason. Letting go, giving up. It’s too hard to think, so why bother? Yes, _yes that’s a good idea. Good, you’re doing very good._

  
  


The animal-printed sheets are cute, though. They are brightly colored, with equine features. You like horses. At least, you think you do…?

  
  


But you’re not supposed to think right now. _Stop that._

  
  


The body shuffles, its pace increasingly horrid the longer it moves. The green light grows dimmer, and dimmer, until you can hardly tell what’s going on anymore. The blood-covered fingers pluck at a pair of pants, grey ones, soft ones. Or so you presume they’re soft. The guilty hands pull the soft, grey sweatpants onto shadowed legs. It seems this body went outside without pants. How embarrassing for it. If you had a body, you wouldn’t be caught dead doing that.

  
  


What was that about dead bodies again? You can’t seem to recall, but _you’re not supposed to recall anything right now._

  
  


It weakly attempts to make its way somewhere else, but the house is now completely dark.

  
  


_Supposed_ to? What dictates who you are supposed to remember?

  
  


Not even the strange, roving glow remains.

  
  


Who was he? That dead body you aren’t allowed to recall?

  
  


Wherever it travels, whether it is successful or not, is lost to you. Whoever you are. Wherever you are.

  
  


You wonder what you’re forgetting. It’s your fault for forgetting.

* * *

Slowly, so slowly, the sound of crickets and someone’s labored breathing reaches your ears. _Your_ ears.

  
  


Wait, what?

  
  


Your knees feel awful, hunching over Dave’s bed like this, and you can’t see for shit. You reach out a hand, one that’s so sweaty it’s gone cold, and blindly feel for him. You touch his shoulder. He is warm and calm. Asleep.

  
  


You think… you think that you’ve left the front door open? You hope Caliborn will close it for you; bugs will get in. Your breathing is uneven, and loud. You can’t see anything. You can’t hear or feel anything, either, and it immediately strikes you as both unfair and confusing even as you fade towards what you can only 50% identify as ‘sleep.’

  
  


In the darkness is silence, not unlike dying. There are no thoughts in your head, because your head is convinced you have no such brain to think thoughts with right now.

  
  


You drop like a stone, and you feel every hit of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1nC9waxG-0)   
[[CLICK HERE for some comfort candy]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJxbDLB8HTw)


	10. Dear Son, Right Now You Have No Clue. Don't Worry, It's Not Up To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *HORROR, body horror, disturbing imagery, sleep paralysis, cryptic thoughts dreams and conversations, dissociation, hallucinations, delusions, graphic nightmares, obsessive compulsive actions, excessive hand-washing, implied nudity, minor injuries, blood, tenderness, physical attraction, internalized toxic masculinity, internalized transphobia, kids fighting, kids cussing, drug mention, mentions of medical hormones (testosterone), dubiously consensual possession, past child character death, inappropriate sexual humor, symptoms of brain damage, second-hand embarrassment, kids flirting, preteens dating, awkward flirting/teasing, detrimental avoidance/repression, fatalism, minor Dave/Terezi, implied one-sided Dave/Karkat, past Dirk/Jake, Vriska.

You open your eyes. You’re on the couch.

  
  


Jake is sitting across from you. He’s in a chair you’ve never seen before. That can’t be your chair – you don’t own a chair like that.

  
  


You’re awake but you can’t move your limbs. Only your eyes. They blink sluggishly, like you could fall asleep again at any moment. You don’t think you’d fight it if you did.

  
  


Jake is exactly the way you remember him. Which is wrong, because the way you remember him is as a teenager. He looks like a kid to you right now, even with his dour pose of being slumped forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. His face is hidden in shadow, aside from his glasses.

  
  


The fireplace behind him smolders at a high blued-green color, which is impossible. That’s not how fires work. You try to move your arms and fail.

  
  


Jake says something.

  
  


You try to move your legs and fail.

  
  


Jake says it again, more demanding. You should answer him, because it’s him, and you’ll never forget your love for him, but you shouldn’t answer him. No one is supposed to know the answer.

  
  


You try to sit up and fail.

  
  


Jake asks you one last time where you’ve buried the body. He stands up, the chair being knocked away into obscurity. Its existence entirely fades from your mind like a bad memory being repressed.

  
  


You can’t move. You blink too slow and your heart rate is too calm for the panic you feel. You’re a sardine in a can.

  
  


Jake stands over top of you, staring down, and there’s something undeniably wrong with his eyes, his bearing weight, the mere expression of his face. Something that tells you, _that’s not Jake._

  
  


You open your mouth and hear a hiss, like that of a snake’s, and Jake backs away out of your sight. You can’t move your head to follow him.

  
  


You stare at your ceiling and fade back into darkness, where nothing and nobody is there to catch you.

* * *

Waking up sucks, because you’re almost immediately aware of what happened last night, but only in the sense that you’re too sore to be stupid enough to forget.

  
  


Dave is laying above his bedsheets, shoes and jacket still on, covered in dirt. Your own shoes are gone. You vaguely remember seeing one out in the front of the house, but you also remember seeing _a lot_ of shit out in front of the house, so now you don’t know why you’ve followed this trail of thought down the rabbit hole. Avoidance, likely.

  
  


When you try to un-slump from against Dave’s bed, your back makes a fantastically horrible series of popping noises. You groan out loud.

  
  


Jesus, not even twenty-six and you already feel like a rusted slinky that’s been lost in someone’s garbage disposal for at least a decade’s worth of those years. You stay right where you are, gazing at Dave’s smudged face.

  
  


The morning is a grey one, but bright – despite drones becoming ever popular, Dave’s never expressed interest in covering his driveway-facing window, and you’ve never pushed it because the plot is so isolated. You think he likes waking up when the sun does, a practice he’ll regretfully have to near abandon once the early pre-dawn mornings of High School come for him.

  
  


You reach out a hand and place it on top of his dirty one. Something in you rebels at the motion, convinced that the action is, for some reason you cannot place, unsanitary on your end, but you do it anyways.

  
  


He’s warm. He’s always been warm.

  
  


Warmth… it is not coming from Dave’s hand, but from somewhere behind you.

  
  


A mere week ago, you might not have, but today, you tense.

  
  


Caliborn grips the back of your neck, forcing you to bow forward more. His arm, fully formed with a hand that boasts five reaching fingers, stretches in front of your sight. It comes down to hover over Dave’s chest.

  
  


Sickly glowing green fingers gently move aside Dave’s askew jacket until his undershirt is exposed. The hand plucks the chained ring from his collarbones, pinching it and lifting it as if to be examined with scrutiny by a face you are currently unable to turn around and view.

  
  


Caliborn drops the ring, which now smolders a few degrees shy of turning red hot, and it bounces off of Dave’s bony rib cage. He shifts a bit in his sleep, but seems unharmed.

  
  


You’re starting to feel like a real idiot, crouching here with burning legs that ache to hold you in position, one hand still frozen on top of an unconscious kid’s. Your kid, yes, but still. Something about this paints an off picture that you don’t appreciate, despite being under the impression that Caliborn is a little better behaved these days.

  
  


Then again, these days Caliborn is a little more possessive in turn.

  
  


Something about this doesn’t bode.

  
  


You say, “Cal,” but it comes off as a weak croak, which for some reason startles you. You clear your throat and back up onto your haunches, struggling to stand upwards.

  
  


Caliborn’s hand stays rooted to your nape, neither pushing nor pulling, so it’s a real surprise when you feel yourself make contact with what is, impossibly, a solid body.

  
  


That’s not supposed to happen.

  
  


A chest, or something like it. It doesn’t move up-down, isn’t breathing, but it’s- he’s _warm. _

  
  


You can feel the tendons in his hand as it flexes, can feel the hot air buffeting out of his mouth (or something like it) as he says, “Dirk.”

  
  


You think you maybe try to ‘girl in a horror movie’ scream, but you won’t let yourself because Dave is asleep _right there,_ so instead your body compromises with a weird ‘squirrel barking’ noise.

  
  


You stumble forward one step and whip your head around. The hand detaches.

  
  


Caliborn has left the room.

  
  


Suddenly, breathing isn’t easy. As if it’s your first night here all over again, you creep towards the hallway, socked feet both silent yet gripless. It’d be easy to slip, you think as you pass by the bathroom. Be easy to have a little accident, you know, as you halt at both the top of the stairs and at your room’s open door.

  
  


Be real damn easy to disappear and never be found, and all.

  
  


You peer in like you don’t own the damn place.

  
  


Caliborn is doing that terrible thing where he stands at the end of the room in front of the window, his form not disjointed at all, the light cutting through him instead of around him. He has no legs for which to stand on- or so you think. You assume. You swear your eyes are playing tricks on you, because it almost looks like there’s the faintest of outlines holding him up.

  
  


He’s got this full body thing going on and you desperately want to look away, but like a deer staring down a semi-truck, you find that you can’t persuade yourself.

  
  


You step into the room and become aware that you don’t even know what to say. ‘Thank you’ is out of the question. ‘What the fuck’ may get him to look at you, but doesn’t exactly lead to an intellectually stimulating conversation. It’s almost as if you only had one option since the beginning.

  
  


His name tastes like ashes in your mouth. “Caliborn.”

  
  


Caliborn turns. He’s very man-shaped right now, and it’s doing funny things to your chest, but not to your head. You expect him to disappear, to become a smog of miasma green with the only focal point being his hell eyes, but he doesn’t. He finishes turning, and it makes sense from your point of view, which has got to be the most alarming thing of all.

  
  


He looks at you, and in your heart you know that things are going to be irreversibly different from now on. It’s not a good feeling, to know this.

  
  


Instead of letting yourself retreat, you shuffle forward until you’re too close to be in denial. His heat washes over you, and provides no more clarity than the slope of his chest does.

  
  


If you are ever to be held up at gunpoint and forced to write a book about your time spent living with a poltergeist, you’ll title it ‘Ghosts Don’t Wear Clothes’ and then beg to be shot before you get any further.

  
  


“Cal,” you start again, “what happened. Tell me what happened.”_ Because I don’t know how else to conceptualize this and I think I’m going crazy._

  
  


So many things you leave unsaid, you insolent coward, you.

  
  


Up close, his… face. His face is, it’s a lot to take in, you’ll admit that. So much so that you’re unsure if you have the words right now to describe it, not after last night.

  
  


Not after you had him in your every blood vessel, every breath, commanding you, and you had no idea in your head about it until it was all over, leaving you with only disjointed memories of doing things – picking up Dave, putting on pants, stumbling around the steps – to look back on in anguished realization.

  
  


Cal’s hand reaches up, and it is very much there and together and not going anywhere. He palms the side of your face much in the way a normal person’s hand would – you’re so stunned that you let him.

  
  


He’s of that almost too-hot warmth, the kind he uses when he’s up here pawing at you at night, getting you to stop worrying and go to sleep, when you never fight him off but you never feel entirely at ease with it all, either.

  
  


“YOU CAME BACK. TO ME.”

  
  


You suck in his hot air and find yourself looking down, unable to fail at describing his face any longer, as if you’re bashful instead of intrinsically, deeply horrified, shocked.

  
  


The floor is no solace – you swear to fuck you blink and you see feet. Green, translucent feet, but toes and an arch all the same.

  
  


_Wow, _you think in a detached sense, _this bitch isn’t wearing any shoes._

  
  


“That doesn’t exactly explain the situation,” you eventually say. He’s still got a hold of one side of your face, and you keep expecting it to burn but it never does, so you end up in that halfway state where your skin is ready to blister, your mind too, but he refuses to allow it. “That doesn’t explain...”

  
  


You, overwhelmed, end the sentence on an inadequate gesture. You feel locked in place by not his hand, but his gaze. It wouldn’t be the first time. You try to turn your head away, to look anywhere else, but can’t, not because he’s holding you down, but because you once again suffer from the human infliction inciting morbid curiosity.

  
  


“I KNEW FROM THE MOMENT YOU STEPPED INTO MY TERRORTORY THAT YOU WERE HIDING A TRAGEDY IN YOUR VERY BONES.” You don’t realize what a boon not having to look at him while he floated about a room, speaking riddles at the back of your head, was until he suddenly stops doing it. It’s confronting merely standing here with him, and he stands with you instead of on some unreachable, dead plane of existence.

  
  


“AND NOW MY PATIENCE HAS WON ME THE PRIZE OF HITTING THE NAIL ON YOUR LITTLE HEAD.” As if to punctuate this point, his other hand comes to rest upon the crown of your scalp. Heat sinks down over you like a blanket. “SO FULL OF PROMISES TO BE BETTER THAN YOU WERE BORN TO BE.”

  
  


“So you claim,” you say, despite knowing deeply that he’s seen things inside of you that even you haven’t.

  
  


“I THINK WE WILL HAVE A VERY LONG TIME TOGETHER. YOU WILL SEE. AND YOU WILL DO.”

  
  


“Will I, now.” But your lack of true confidence betrays you – you don’t struggle. “Pro tip: this is a great lead-in to telling me what actually happened.”

  
  


“I DO NOT THINK. YOU REQUIRE SUCH A THING.” He lets his hand fall, moving back and then away from you. Not quite circling you like a damn vulture like he does, but close enough that you feel defensive and picked apart. Hell, at least it’s familiar.

  
  


“Or you could just walk around on your new fancy legs. That’s definitely helpful.” Caliborn chuckles at you, an action that makes you think of sand filling in over the head of a victim. You try not to be frightened. You fail instantaneously.

  
  


“YOU ARE SMART ENOUGH. FOR THIS.” He comes around the side of you, and although his steps make no sound, your mind tricks you into feeling the nonexistent vibrations against the floorboards. “YOU SAW. YOU RECOGNIZE. SAY WHAT YOU’VE BOASTED BEFORE. TO ME. GO ON.”

  
  


“Occam’s Razor,” you dutifully fill in with no short amount of intimidated coercion that you have grown to ignore and, on your worse days, accept. “You’ve dealt with the problem by making it a part of you.” You look up, finally. His teeth are out and they appear to be quite physical. You imagine them biting down on you, and then immediately banish the thought because there’s a lot of places a thought like that can go, and all of them are blasphemous. “By utilizing its energy elsewhere.”

  
  


“CORRECT.” His hand slides along your back, and.

  
  


Oh.

  
  


Hmmmmokay. Yup. That definitely feels like a hand and not an esoteric concept of light and pressure like it used to.

  
  


You aren’t sure you’re ever going to get settled like this, to seeing and feeling him like one would a particularly dangerous human. A man. His individual fingers tap at a load-bearing segment of your back. You swear you can feel your spinal fluid jump.

  
  


“TRY NOT TO GET TOO EXCITED.” He is mocking you for being affected by this change.

  
  


Abruptly, the tender mood of the scene vanishes. Fucker.

  
  


“So you’re more powerful now?” Impossibly, Caliborn’s ‘chest’ puffs out just a smidge more. You look him in the eyes, flutter your lashes like a dumbass, and tell him, “Then go get those damn knives out of the wall. Lord knows you’ve left them there long enough.”

  
  


With a face that can twist and snarl and blanch and everything, you can see the exact moment Caliborn must be thinking ‘ugh fuck this bitch’, because right after, he makes like the ghost he purportedly is, and disappears.

  
  


For a moment, bereft of supernatural scrutiny, all you can do is collapse onto your bed with jelly legs. You think you may have had too many things to take in within too short of a time, because your mind is left almost completely blank, despite having so many things to think about.

  
  


You suppose it’ll all come inconveniently crashing down some time later. Naturally, you’d expect nothing less.

  
  


You belatedly become aware that Dave must have woken up at some point, because the water is running. You don’t hear him talking, though, so you’re going to have to assume that Caliborn isn’t ambushing Dave with his newfound physicality like he did to you. Small blessings.

  
  


When you manage to convince yourself to at least try to be a human being with responsibilities again, you sit on Dave’s bed and wait for him to be done with his shower.

  
  


Ten or so minutes later, as he shuffles into his room in nothing but a big red towel, he doesn’t immediately say anything to you. He smooths his bland moisturizer over his face and body, then gets dressed into something soft and casual. It’s a little intimidating, a little domestic – your routine looks much the same. You feel like he doesn’t actually ‘need’ cosmetics yet, but you’re not about to take it away from him.

  
  


Still silent, Dave abandons his towel and walks up to you. His expression is tired when he puts his hands on your chest and pushes you. You do him one better, scooting far back onto the bed so that you’re up against the pillows. He climbs over you like he has done many a time before, then plops down with his chin somewhere on the upper-middle plane of your abdomen.

  
  


You automatically put a hand on his back and rub. He doesn’t start crying, and you’re glad, though his expression shifts from tired to fraught. A slew of thoughts must be plaguing him; you have to be patient.

  
  


The first thing he says today, the morning after the incident, is, “So that was fucked up, huh.”

  
  


You snort, the action causing him to bounce once. He looks a little offended.

  
  


“Yea, it was fucked up,” you confirm. “But we survived. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” A moment of breathing. “You wanna talk about it?”

  
  


Dave shifts so that his chin is pillowed on his forearms, which is great, because it was digging into your flesh. He’s not as light as he used to be. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  
  


“No, but I could have prevented it. I knew it was out there. I should’ve put my foot down, kept you home.” You delicately drape your hand over his head, slowly and unwilling mimicking the position Cal had you in earlier. “You don’t act like it, but you’re not hurt, are you?”

  
  


Dave shakes his head. “Just some scrapes. My ankle hurts from where...” He makes an uncomfortable noise. “At least it’s gone now, I guess.” He mumbles ‘Cal vored it or whatever’, making you both not want to respond and also become aware that Dave wasn’t as unconscious as you assumed once you hit the driveway.

  
  


“You wanna tell me why you were so far out?”

  
  


“...No.”

  
  


You look down at him. “Dave.”

  
  


Dave goes _“eughmmm”, _his face a twist of childish defiance mixed with embarrassment, before he meets your eyes and sighs explosively. “Fucker Pied Piper’d me.”

  
  


What? “You’re gonna need to extrapolate, li’l dude.”

  
  


“I dunno, it was just like… I saw it, I thought it was cool and interesting, and then I followed it. Didn’t think anything of where it was leading me, like the dumb kid I am, until I did, but by then it was too late. I didn’t know the way back.” He picks at the rib knit of your shirt. “It was just. Easier to stand there and be scared, I guess.”

  
  


“Yea. Sometimes it does feel that way,” you say, even though in your mind you think violently, _I did. I knew the way back._ But you don’t want to think about how you did, and when you do, that’s a conversation to be held with other, more responsible parties. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to find you sooner. Cal had to kick me off the can first.”

  
  


“Dude, seriously, quit apologizing. Also ew. It could not be more obvious that I was the one who messed up. I shouldn’t’ve...” Dave pinches his eyes closed. “I shouldn’t’ve kissed Karkat.”

  
  


Oh man. Somehow, this ensuing conversation about tweenaged romance feels more daunting than the one about literally almost dying to a supernatural entity. “Maybe,” you say, like a failsafe being triggered labeled ‘Neutral Party.’ “Might be weird to talk about with me, but why did you?”

  
  


“I- I just wanted him to look at me, I dunno.” He unexpectedly rolls off of you, laying next to you on the bed, curled inward towards your ribs. Now, he looks small again. You shift to the side a bit to accommodate him. “I feel like I’ve totally ruined everything. I didn’t _have _to lay one right on him, but he just looked so… He’s _so...” _

  
  


Dave clenches a hand into a fist, eyes pinching shut once more. Finally, one tear slips out. “He’s just so _nice_ to me, I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me, to wanna ruin that. What if I’ve fucked everything up and he never talks to me again? I wish I could go back in time and make it never happen, I- I’ll just keep it to myself. He doesn’t need to know how I’m all confused inside.” He sniffles, looking haunted. “He _didn’t_ need to know.”

  
  


Lost, you drape an arm over Dave’s shoulder and fully commit to laying on your side, as if you’re shielding him from the wider world. “If it makes you feel better, Kankri said that Karkat’s been acting miserable all week. He seems excited to see you on Saturday, though.”

  
  


“It doesn’t.” But Dave wipes away his few tears and sheds no more. “Thanks. I don’t know what I’ll tell him, though.”

  
  


“What do you mean?”

  
  


“Just –” Dave makes an esoteric gesture that nearly bonks you on the nose. “Everything about what happened. If I’m being optimistic and all, I’d say that Karkat and I aren’t totally ex-BFFs or whatever, but like, what the fuck? Do I say?? How do I explain why I missed his,” Dave drags his phone out of his pocket, then shoves it in your face, “_seven phone calls_ and _fifty__-five text messages._ Like oh my god, actually, that’s a lot. Christ, Karkat.”

  
  


Dave ponders his phone in bewilderment, and you blink cherry-colored phone screen background spots out of your eyes. “You could take it from the top and just tell him. Or don’t. It’s up to you who you share it with – you’re not obligated to tell Karkat if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Though I imagine he’d love to listen.”

  
  


“But what if he’s too scared to come over anymore?” Dave, without warning, starts a call with Karkat, and then puts it on speakerphone as soon as his friend picks up. Like tonal whiplash in real life, Dave greets him with, “Almost died the other day, what’s good.”

  
  


Well, fuck, you guess you tried.

  
  


“WHAT!?” Karkat’s voice is so loud that the phone can hardly seem to handle it, but Dave doesn’t flinch. You do.

  
  


“Said I almost died yesterday! Also how are you, how’s the fam, how’s the hemorrhoids, still doing ten pounds of cokey-cokey a day just to stay sane?”

  
  


You give Dave an incredulous look, but all he does is covertly whisper ‘it’s just zoomer talk, don’t be alarmed’, which helps approximately nothing, especially considering you’re almost positive that you and him barely qualify as being from the same generation.

  
  


“HangonKankri’seavesdropping,” Karkat hisses all in a rush before shouting way too close to the receiver, “Fuck OFF Kankri, we need to talk about BOY STUFF!”

  
  


“_Boy stuff?”_ Asks Kankri’s distant, fuzzy voice. _“Should I be concerned?”_

  
  


“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” Whooshing air of what you can only assume is Karkat’s trademark violent gesturing.

  
  


“_I don’t like how you’re insinuating anything to do with your genitals is considered ‘boy stuff’, but– Karkat, don’t be vulgar!”_ An outraged sputtering that could almost be mistaken for a laugh. _“Go to your room!”_

  
  


“I’m already in my room!” Door slam. At a much calmer volume, Karkat says, “Okay now what was that about almost dying?”

  
  


Before Dave can launch into it, his mouth already wide open, you say, “Do you want me to leave?”

  
  


You get a begrudging “hi Dirk” from Karkat and a “what nooo you can stay, please stay” from Dave. So you stay, even though you have multiple bad feelings about this.

  
  


As Dave tells his story, you predictably find the want to leave increasing by the second.

  
  


“Did you at least get a good snapchat story out of it?” Blithely asks Karkat, who sounds like he’s eating something crunchy.

  
  


“Nah, fuck, I completely forgot to grab for my phone. I’m such a failure of a technology-addicted kid,” says Dave, picking at a scab on his elbow that he must’ve gotten from your fleeing run through the sharp pines. You feel a pain in your chest. “I think there’s still destruction all over the front lawn though so like if you wanna come poke at it, that’d be. Cool and stuff.”

  
  


And awkward silence from the other end. “Yea alright.”

  
  


“Okay, I’m up,” you finally break with, hefting yourself away from Dave. “Kids, it’s been real – perhaps a little too real – but listening to this is seriously distressing. And I haven’t even fed anybody yet.”

  
  


Dave whines and tries to trap you with his legs, so you reach around and pinch the skin of his cheek until he goes “oof owie” in a comically deep voice and lets you free. He immediately goes back into how freaky Caliborn looked, and then quickly gets onto the topic of his upcoming birthday.

  
  


At least he’s not traumatized for life, you guess.

  
  


Unconventionally, his conversation with Karkat doesn’t last very long. Before you’re even done making the toast, Dave clomps downstairs and sits at his usual spot at the table, playing aimlessly on his phone.

  
  


“Should I call Hal or somethin’?” He asks when you place his plate down in front of him, sunny-side up eggs and such.

  
  


“No.” You sit down in your seat, pouring his orange juice and then yours.

  
  


“Damn, a’ight.” He takes a few bites, his legs kicking happy circles under the table before stopping. “Umm… I know there’s this like, unspoken rule about telling people about Cal and the stuff that happens out here in the freaky woods, but uhh I kinda told my online friends?”

  
  


You pause in nibbling your toast, your appetite not quite awake. You blink at him.

  
  


Dave cringes like he’s already in trouble and he knows it. “It’s just three kids, y’know the Minecraft server ones. Jade – she’s gardenGnostic – said she’s had some weird stuff happen to her, too, and before I knew it I was just kinda in the main chat blathering on with her about all the spooky supernatural stuff we’ve witnessed and then John and Rose got on and were like ‘wtf are y’all for real.’ And I was like, yea, unfortunately.”

  
  


You swallow your dry mouthful of toast and guilt. Guilt at raising Dave in such an obviously perilous location, of what you’ve grown him to normalize.

  
  


“Well, you said it yourself – it was an unspoken rule.” You settle back into your seat and consider your options. Absently, you wonder where Caliborn is right now. He’s certainly not busy jimmying those damn knives out of the wall. “Honestly, whatever keeps this place from being some kinda new hotspot for shitty TV crews is all I aim for. This house, and… who occupies it, I only stayed because of extenuating circumstances.” You look at Dave. “And then I stayed because of you.”

  
  


Dave gets that tiny, pleased smile of his, looking down as if he can hide it. He can’t. “Guess I ought’a tell you a bit about them.”

  
  


“You don’t have to,” you say amidst an inner fight with yourself, with the urge to yank every extraneous thought out of Dave’s head to claim it for yourself. You don’t like not knowing things. You don’t like being caught off guard. On the flip-side, you don’t like comparing yourself to the previous actions of your father. You simmer down.

  
  


“Yea well I want to so shut up.”

  
  


You snort. “Alright. Tell me about these friends of yours that definitely aren’t secretly pedophiles.”

  
  


“Rose is gonna turn thirteen like a day after I turn eleven. Jade turns eleven like two days before I do. John turned ten back in April. Nope, no pedos here, Bro, just a happy campy band of Minecraft playin’ kids. Well and one teenager, I guess, because Rose just has to be special.” He looks at you and does something significant with his eyebrows. “She wears black lipstick.”

  
  


You nod as if you understand, and you drink your orange juice.

  
  


There’s a lot more eating and a lot less talking after that. Dave’s sopping up his runny yolk with his toast when the talkbug bites him in the ass again, peering over at you like he thinks he’s being sneaky.

  
  


“Don’t you think we might be underd- under-reacting?” He finally asks. “Like. Okay no hate, but the last time I stubbed my toe, you looked like you were gonna have a fuckin’ heart attack. I _felt_ like I was gonna have a heart attack, because ow.”

  
  


“Yea. We’re under-reacting,” you easily confirm, “But also nah.”

  
  


Dave blankly looks at you.

  
  


“This is how I see it.” You wipe your fingers on a napkin, then frame them in front of yourself as an imaginary concept. “We live with a supernatural entity – a frankly dangerous one who plays favorites – in the middle of underplayed supernatural central. One of your friends has had contact with a ghost girl for several years now, and none of us think this is strange.” You lower your hands. “Whatever that thing was, it was an anomaly, but one well within the range of normality for our lifestyle. I’m not gonna claim that it was an average day by any means, but to us, it wasn’t the most shocking thing that could potentially happen.”

  
  


Dave goes, “Oh.” Making you realize you might’ve lost him somewhere along the way. “I heard you and Cal talking. I didn’t stick around to listen in but like… I guess things are gonna start changing now, won’t they?”

  
  


“I suppose. But all things do eventually. It’s kind of a part of growing up, though you won’t realize it until it’s all over.”

  
  


“Huh. I’ll take your word for it.”

  
  


Dave shadows you when you go out to survey the damage. It’s pretty extensive, but will otherwise only take maybe one good day of hard work to majorly clean up.

  
  


A couple of the trees bracketing the property are utterly shredded. You’re sad to see them go – you’re fond of the feeling of being caged in at all sides by unseeing pines, protectors and yet also wardens. They indiscriminately block both chilly wind and bright sunlight.

  
  


Dave gets quiet and chatty in turns. You’re worried, but you aren’t sure if making him talk about it with you again so soon will yield fortuitous results, so you simply keep him close, keep him calm.

  
  


When you go back inside, the rusty knives that have been stuck in your kitchen wall for every year you’ve lived here like a piece of shitty art have been removed, each one settled neatly in a perfect spiral on the table.

  
  


Dave looks at it for a moment too long. The expression on his face may not be totally readable to you, but you understand that it is not comforted.

* * *

It’s Dave’s eleventh birthday, and your twenty-sixth.

  
  


Karkat’s over, but Terezi isn’t because she’s caught a cold, and Sollux isn’t because he’s still recovering.

  
  


Shittily making up for it, you gave them some pieces of bubblegum leftover from Halloween, the cheap kind that are big pink sugary lumps. You think Karkat may have given both to Dave.

  
  


The boys sit on Dave’s Bench where you’ve banished them after they got splinters from trying to help you pick up the detritus still littering the front of the house. You were sure they’d want to escape inside to do something more interesting, but they haven’t moved since they got here and sat down. You only have one pair of work gloves.

  
  


It’s taken you this long to really commit to cleaning it up because you’ve been feeling off. Since the incident, of course. When else.

  
  


You don’t know why, but you feel the urge to wash your hands at a much higher consistency than before, as if you’re constantly dragging your fingers through something sticky, or something meaty.

  
  


You don’t know why, but a fear overcomes you when Dave is within grabbing distance, one that says you shouldn’t touch him until your hands have been cleaned just one more time, and even then…

  
  


Caliborn is acting strange. That, you do know why. Know why like you know how he now knows the very depths of your brain. Know why like you know how he’s been inside your dreams for years now, and you just laid there and let him because it was easier than… anything. Anything else.

  
  


Easier than breaking apart and dealing with the aftermath.

  
  


You pause in your methodical combing of the gravel, plucking large and small splinters alike, no longer smoldering but having been reduced to charcoal. You’re keeping some of the best bits in a tin for Dave – you’ll crush it up and give it to him. Charcoal can be used in art. Saves you the money of having to buy charcoal pencils, you reckon.

  
  


Over on Dave’s Bench, the boys are subdued. It reminds you a lot of how they used to be when they first started hanging out. That fifth birthday of Dave’s comes to mind, the long stares and the awkward pauses. They both seem to be aware that their relationship is changing with or without their consent, but neither act ready to outright acknowledge it.

  
  


You resist the tempting urge to walk over there and force them to confront the elephant that’s going to be stalking them (and ergo you) for an indefinite amount of time. It’s not your place, you tell yourself, even as you can hear Kankri’s meddling soliloquies in your mind.

  
  


_Kankri would intervene,_ you bitch at yourself as you toss chunks of deadened wood into whatever receptacle you could find and drag outside. _Hal would, too. _You don’t think Caliborn gives much of a fuck, though, that or he’s just acting like he doesn’t in order to piss you off. Wouldn’t put it past him.

  
  


You crunch uneven splinters down to make room for more. There’s no way in hell you’re making anything out of this shitty wood, that’s for sure.

  
  


After a stupendously stilted birthday, in which Karkat gave Dave some new colored pencils and you gave him his first pair of Heelies and a virtual stack of Robux, you stand in front of the bathroom mirror hours after you took Karkat home and put Dave to bed.

  
  


You tap your shorn fingernails against the glass. It’s not cracked, much less shattered. Your image is intact. That seems wrong. Why do you miss the times when you weren’t whole? That’s not something normal people should want.

  
  


You hate to admit it now, but breaking apart is just so _easy._ It’s like it’s what you were _built for._

  
  


You think about the man that made you this way, palmed each brick of your foundation before laying it with permanent slip, and you’re full with the indescribable feeling of it all.

  
  


You close your eyes so that you don’t have to see them, see him in them. You don’t startle when a warmth blooms from behind you, but you don’t exactly lean into it, either.

  
  


Caliborn’s hand cradles the back of your head. You uncontrollably give a full-body shiver that wracks your frame. You open your eyes in surprise at yourself, not entirely sure what brought that on.

  
  


He… Still doesn’t look entirely human.

  
  


But the feeling of him, lord does it give that shaky visage a run for its money.

  
  


“Don’t get too excited,” you tell the reflection of his skull-like grin.

  
  


Slowly, he walks out of the bathroom. You, as if tethered, follow him. He walks down the hallway like he has a right to do so, like he’s got everything and the concept of walking at all figured out. You’re just strung along for the ride.

  
  


He peeks back over his broad, green shoulder, a lesson in coyness compounded down to the aimless trapped smoke of his body and his flickering red pyrelight eyes, and you think _Man, what a funny guy._

  
  


You don’t even remember climbing into bed, much less dropping off to sleep, but that’s where you find yourself come morning. Exactly sunrise. A little sweaty and disheveled by your own tossing and turning of which you, of course, cannot remember.

  
  


Caliborn isn’t there to tell you good morning.

  
  


Typical.

* * *

You’re at the town's economically combined Middle-slash-High School in a completely new yet definitely similar pick-up line, waiting for your kid, when Karkat comes running up, searching with quick flicks of his eyes.

  
  


He looks windswept and harried. Before you can open your mouth, a confused Dave walks up behind him and goes, “Dude, your bus is about to leave.”

  
  


Karkat spins around. “Kanaya just kicked Eridan’s guts in and she’s still going at him!”

  
  


With twin looks of excitement mixed with dread, the kids haphazardly toss their bags in the open windows and run from your truck before you can ask any reasonable questions.

  
  


It seems as if schoolyard brawls can bring together even the most strained of friendships.

  
  


You get the feeling that you, an adult haplessly corralled into only one small area of the school’s property, will not be allowed within the building in order to witness this supposedly tantalizing event, so you stay put in your truck and grow increasingly worried as the minutes pass and your kid does not reappear.

  
  


You feel like now is when the jealousy should rear its head, complaining about how Dave gets to experience normal childhood the way you didn’t, but you find that path to be a pursuit lacking in honey for its pot. You’ve never understood the public spectacle of children fighting, not even when you yourself were a hormone-riddled child full of rage and expectations.

  
  


Hal, on the other hand… He’ll be a fun one to tell this to. Should Dave return unharmed, that is.

  
  


Right as you’re about to start doing the dumb thing and get out to go poke around, Karkat, Dave, and Kanaya all come sprinting around the scuffed brick building from a door which looks like it might lead to a gym or something. They make a beeline for your truck.

  
  


You preemptively unlock your doors, which is a good idea, because Dave and Karkat rip them open like they’re being chased, and Kanaya practically launches herself inside like she’s a battering ram and not an eighth grade girl. With blood on her shirt.

  
  


Aahh, fuck, you’re not qualified for this.

  
  


Dave’s voice breaks in ten different places when he scream-begs you to, “Drive, fucking drive, man!”

  
  


You drive at only slightly above a reasonable speed. Unlike in a movie, the cops don’t follow you.

  
  


In the backseat, Kanaya wipes somebody else’s blood off of her mouth, and then re-applies her mussed green lipstick with an adrenaline-shaky hand.

  
  


Karkat is half laying across her lap, looking up at her in awe, and Dave’s got a magnificent thousand-yard stare going on as he steadfastly looks out the window and nowhere else.

  
  


You’re not exactly the paragon of conversation nor great decisions, so you take them to the kitschy icecream place. You practically coerce all three kids into ordering something, then get a cheap lemon icee just so that you can hand it to Kanaya, all bundled in wet napkins, and she can hold it to her blackening eye.

  
  


Nobody seems quite ready to talk yet, least of all you, so you call one of the only people who you think would know better than you in this situation: Kankri.

  
  


Kanaya gives you this look that speaks a thousand words, many of them being ‘if you’re calling my mom there’s nothing stopping me from running away and never coming back’ and only some of them being ‘I can kill a man’, so you tell her, “I’m just calling Kankri,” and miraculously that calms everybody down.

  
  


Once you get the bare bones explained, Kankri almost immediately asks for the phone to be handed to Kanaya. You don’t see why not, so you foist it off onto her. She takes it.

  
  


She opens with, “Eridan wouldn’t stop harassing Feferi and saying shit about Sollux. So I dealt with it.” A few moments of talking on Kankri’s end and silence on Kanaya’s. “Technically, it was after school hours.”

  
  


Karkat starts shaking his head like he knows she’s not gonna win this one. You’re inclined to agree with him.

  
  


Kanaya’s face goes from relentlessly stormy to contrite to downtrodden within the span of one conversation, which is exactly why you called the local faux-saint and didn’t try to say anything yourself. She hands the phone back without saying goodbye, and picks at her root beer float.

  
  


“Well,” sighs Kankri in a self-satisfied way, “I told her that she can come here, but that she’d have to have her mother pick her up. We’ll be having a long conversation, I’m sure, but I said that I won’t let Rosa do anything rash. Not that I think Rosa would, anyway.”

  
  


“Right,” you say, as something to say at all.

  
  


“It was just one fight,” says Kankri, words you know he’d never say if Karkat were to ever do the same thing because Kankri is a hypocrite, but a lovable one.

  
  


“Ahuh,” you say, “and it was just the kid that shot Sol.”

  
  


“Oh no, that doesn’t factor in at all.” Kankri titters dangerously at the end of that sentence, though. “Of course I wouldn’t wish ill will on any child. Not even that one.”

  
  


“I believe you,” you lie. “I’ll swing by with Karkat and Kanaya in a few.” At his confirmation, you hang up.

  
  


As soon as one phone call ends, another begins: the kids barely have any time to stew in the silence of post-’oh god that really happened’ before Karkat’s phone is ringing. It’s Terezi. He answers it.

  
  


Her voice comes out very loud as she yells, “Put me on speaker! PUT ME ON SPEAKER!” Until Dave fumbles with the device and finally puts her on speaker, and then she’s practically screaming directly into the receiver like a dragon.

  
  


Dave covers his ears. “You’re on speaker, jesus!”

  
  


Terezi abruptly stops screeching. “Thank you, Dave! That wasn’t so hard, now was it, boys. I’m in a charitable mood, so I’ll give you approximately two seconds to tell me exactly what happened and don’t spare any gruesome detai- _Vriska!”_

  
  


Terezi cuts herself off with a name, or a strange word that you’ve never heard before. The boys both make pained faces. Kanaya spoons half-melted icecream into her mouth.

  
  


“Vriska,” Dave and Karkat groan at the same time.

  
  


A completely new voice crows, “Vriska!!!!!!!!” from the phone, and you think _ah, a __girl._

  
  


Whatever could possibly go wrong.

  
  


Apparently, Terezi and Vriska are riding the bus home together. Terezi’s going to spend the night, Vriska says. They’re going to learn how to rob a bank, Terezi says. They’re gonna LARP, Vriska says.

  
  


Dave and Karkat melt into the picnic table and nod along until Terezi remembers that she called for a reason, and then they all perk up and regale the tale of how Kanaya roundhouse kicked Eridan into some lockers, got punched in the face, threw him into the janitor’s trash can, then ran for it like a bat out of hell. For Sollux’s honor, or whatever. Also some girl named Feferi was there but that’s really not important because Vriska thinks Feferi is a total whiner and SUCKS!!!!!!!!

  
  


Kanaya and Vriska chat until she stops looking like the world is going to end any second and starts smiling a bit more. Dave and Karkat easily hand the phone over and then feel the need to tell you about the Middle School drama you did not necessarily ask to be included in.

  
  


“Terezi thinks Vriska is the best thing since Youtube,” Dave says seriously. “She moved here over summer break.”

  
  


Vriska, practically yelling into the phone, says, “DID YOU KNOW THAT SPIDERS FUCK UP TO EIGHT TIMES A DAY??”

  
  


Terezi responds, “No, THAT’S AMAZING!!”

  
  


Vriska makes an excited noise. “It’s TOOOOOOOOTALLY true, trust me.”

  
  


Karkat looks skyward as if asking for the aid of a higher power. “We just can’t compete.”

  
  


You find yourself once again nodding as if you understand. You’re pretty sure you don’t.

  
  


Even though it seems like Dave’d rather stick around, you drop Karkat and Kanaya off at Kankri’s and then head home with your kid. You’re proud to know that he has enough tact to not voice his want to witness it all go down – it’s between Kanaya and her family. She may not know that they’re technically her family, but, well… It’s just not your place.

  
  


You walk in the front door of home to the image of Caliborn sitting on the couch. _Sitting._

  
  


You stare at him.

  
  


He stares at you.

  
  


Dave breaks it quickly. “Oh my god, Cal, you are _so_ weird!” He stomps past towards the stairs.

  
  


Cal shoots you an offended look. You shrug at him with lots of hand-gesture thrown in to convey the ‘I do not control the Dave’ emotions you feel right now.

  
  


As soon as you hear Dave’s door shut, though, you tell him, “Seriously, get off the couch, that really is weird.”

  
  


He disappears from sight, but not from the air. “SPOILSPORT.”

  
  


“Hey, don’t even.” You drop your keys in the lampshade by the front door, that strange 60s one that’s since been stolen from its lamp shading duty and is now used most ineffectively as a bowl. “He’s probably reminded of that time you set the couch on fire. With me on it.”

  
  


You walk into the kitchen to obsessively wash your hands for what feels like the fifth time today. You can feel it, all the more aware now, when Cal follows you there, footstep for footstep.

  
  


“YOU ACT LIKE YOU DIDN’T NEED A NEW COUCH.” It’s confronting of him, to come right up behind you and crowd you against the sink like this, his hands startlingly solid and real where they grip at the last rib on each side, like he’s forcing you to think about how breakable those are.

  
  


“Could’ve just said you disapproved of the old one,” you argue, but it’s a weak one and you know it. You blankly watch the blood that doesn’t exist slip from your dark skin, then turn the sink off.

  
  


Cal’s still got you in his creepy fingers and you’re starting to feel uncomfortably caged.

  
  


“Listen,” you begin with, despite not having a plan of what to say next at all, “this feels weird.”

  
  


After a few seconds of stilled silence, you can feel Cal slip away. You breathe a little deeper.

  
  


“I THOUGHT YOU’D.” A strange pause, in which you slowly turn around and regret it immediately. Yup, still not used to him having a face. Or a torso. Or… Gonna stop now. “APPRECIATE. THIS.”

  
  


He gestures at himself, which is something he could not do a few months ago.

  
  


“Oh,” you say. You squint at him. “Since when do you care about what I ‘appreciate.’”

  
  


An inhuman growl escapes him, only punctuated by his fully formed mouth, the cut of his sharp teeth. He jabs out like a viper, an action made all the more frightening now that you can see it coming, catching your right hip in between the claws of his hand, pressing a hot coal into you at a specific spot you have never been allowed to forget.

  
  


You make a wounded noise, jerking away before you can hold yourself. It burns. When was the last time it burned like this?

  
  


“I WONDER.” He is a man with a snake speaking from his tongue, but that isn’t a completely true descriptor even as you think it. More like a snake pretending to be a man. A dead man. “WHEN THE LAST TIME WILL BE. THAT YOU HAVE ME SEEK YOU OUT. INSTEAD OF THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE PROPER WAY.”

  
  


It’s so confusing, having to look him in the eyes while he does this. You wonder what he sees in yours. Nothing good, you’d think.

  
  


He disappears.

  
  


You calmly lean against the sink, head titled limply back, and suffer that strange bereftness after that pain that gives no aftershocks, no twinges of memory.

  
  


You ponder what feels like it’s missing. You come up wanting.

* * *

Mituna keeps trying to give you candy, apparently from that Lunar New Year celebration, and you keep having to take them because Captor Papa is glaring at you from the kitchen and you hate this household, but not enough to disrupt it.

  
  


You’re over here without the kids, for once, because they’re at school, but apparently Mituna refused to wait on starting your skateboarding lessons up again now that he’s used his infallible logic to determine that it has been ‘long enough’ since Sollux came home from the hospital. Whatever that means.

  
  


First, however, you must suffer through being dragged upstairs by the wrist like you’re a fucking child, experiencing deja-vu. What is it with Captors and acting like you’re going to bolt if they don’t keep a grip on you?

  
  


Mituna bursts into Sollux’s room with a, “Hiiiiiiiii, Sol, I brought Dirk!”

  
  


Sollux is reclined on his bed, which has since been moved from one wall to the other, likely to make it easier to get to from the doorway without the inward-swinging door knocking into anybody’s knees. Namely yours.

  
  


You note that the floor is very clean, and that most of the electronics that were once on are now off. A lot of them are screens. Some are unplugged. The fish tank bubbles merrily on.

  
  


“Thank fuck,” drawls Sollux, “I thought I’d perish if I went one more day without having Dirk goddamn Lalonde taking up space in my room, not saying anything for hours on end. How did you know exactly what I wanted, Tuna, you mind-reader.”

  
  


Mituna salutes his little brother, apparently unable to read Sollux’s obviously sarcastic tone. “Just- heheheh, just lucky I guessss!”

  
  


“Lucky, huh.” Sollux plucks a wireless earphone from his right ear, taking a couple tries before he find his side table and sets it down. “Well it sounds like you’re both standing in my doorway like a couple of loons, but obviously I can’t be sure, so forgive me if I look like a fucking idiot when I say: come in, goddammit, you’re letting my depression stank out.”

  
  


Mituna shoves you into the room and shuts the door really loudly. “Soz,” he says, then plops down onto the floor next to Sollux’s bed. Despite this, his head comes up damn near to where Sollux’s is.

  
  


You don’t understand what you’re doing here, beyond the aforementioned skateboarding lessons you still can’t get out of and apparently a small mountain of Chinese New Year leftovers.

  
  


Speaking of, Mituna has something in his hand and is pressing it deceivingly gently into Sollux’s lost ones.

  
  


“Here, Dad ssaid to, to hold this. Like thiss,” Mituna instructs as he folds Sollux’s fingers over it, rubbing back and forth for him.

  
  


“I know how to use my fingers,” Sollux hisses, yanking his hands away. Still, he continues to rub. “Yup. Feels like a damn goat or whatever. What a surprise.”

  
  


Mituna happily wiggles around on the floor, his tongue sticking out from his gapped smile.

  
  


You really don’t understand what you’re doing here.

  
  


You must make an uncomfortable noise because Sollux starts like he’s forgotten you were here. You regret reminding him, his face going through an emotional journey too fast for you to parse.

  
  


“Tuna,” says Sollux in a strange tone of voice. Mituna instantly snaps to attention. “Can you go get me a glass of water? From the filter, downstairs.”

  
  


“Sure!” Mituna springs into action, vacating the room faster than you can say, ‘actually, no, I don’t want to strategically be left alone with this recently blinded teenager’, but it’s too late. You get a whiff of rubber and medicated lotion as he passes you.

  
  


Sollux deftly flips his pendant over and over in his long fingers, the ones you know are just as sweaty as his brothers seem to perpetually be. If he still had his eyes, he’d be pinning you with them, you don’t doubt this.

  
  


“I guess I should say sorry for acting so weird around you,” he says, yet notably doesn’t actually apologize. “I don’t even know why I did. I think I thought you were cool or something? Ugh, it was so dumb.”

  
  


You shrug, more for yourself than for him. A lot of things are a performance, once you get down to it. “It’s hard to be seen as weak and vulnerable around people you barely know.”

  
  


Sollux laughs at you. You guess you deserve that. “Uh, yea, whatever you say.” He tosses his pendent up and down, never failing to catch it. You wonder if he’s practiced to be able to do that, or if his lifetime of playing video games aids him even like this. “You know, all the new years before, Dad always got the same stuff. Same food, same lame firecrackers.” He holds up the shining circle. “Same token that I never knew what to do with but put in a shoe box, maybe show some kids at school to impress them. But this year, some of the stuff is different.”

  
  


Sollux tosses it to you, and you almost don’t catch it. You turn it over in your hand, feel its pronounced grooves. Year of the Sheep, 2027. It’s solid, metal, well made.

  
  


“They used to be flat,” says Sollux, “but he got different ones. He hates doing stuff different, calls it ‘tradition’ and shit.”

  
  


“He wanted you to be able to feel it,” you say, even though it feels unnecessary to point out the obvious, “to be included.”

  
  


“Sure.” Sollux achingly slowly stands from the bed, literally blindly reaching for the delicate white cane that rests against the wall. “Aradia’s still here. Just can’t see her anymore, only hear. Not like she has a whole lot more to say this year than she did last.”

  
  


On reflex, you look around the room as if you can see her. You cannot.

  
  


“And no,” says Sollux in a long-suffering voice, “we definitely are not still dating. She’s stuck as a ten-year-old. That’s too weird for me, consequential death or no.” He stands there, not quite leaning on his cane because it’s not built for that, but looking like he might want to. “Tuna told me that he told you what happened. With the bus.”

  
  


“Yea.” You hadn’t asked or wanted to know, but he told. Hospitals are weird places for everybody.

  
  


“Right.” Sollux adjusts his stance, looking worn out and uncomfortable no matter how he stands. “Well. There was another person there. Who Mituna couldn’t push out of the way in time. She was too far behind me and him – didn’t even realize what was coming.”

  
  


A bad feeling sinks your stomach down to your knees. You look around the room again despite the futility of the action. “Aradia.”

  
  


Sollux nods. “Yea. He still blames himself, even though he literally got hit by a bus for me. He didn’t have to. He’s not Superman or whatever, there was no way he’d save both me and Aradia, not even if he died while trying.”

  
  


He starts shuffling in the general direction of his bedroom door. After a few agonizing moments, he says, “Lead me, dammit. Like what are you even doing, just standing there? Asshole.”

  
  


You hesitantly grab his elbow at the command. “Where are you going?”

  
  


“Getting a glass of water.” Sollux elbows you, then acts like he didn’t just do that. “Tuna probably forgot.”

  
  


When you finally hobble him downstairs, it turns out that Mituna got very involved in telling their visibly disgusted dad about how he thinks plain gelatin looks and feels like rubbery, edible condoms. Sollux laughs himself so hysterically silly that he pulls something.

  
  


You’re unofficially kicked out of the house when Captor Papa dourly carries his youngest son back upstairs, Mituna following with a glass of water in hand and throwing a peace sign down at you with the other.

  
  


Guess skateboarding is canceled. You aren’t torn up about it.

* * *

In what feels like no time at all, but is in actuality several months of Spring, the summer creeps in.

  
  


Honestly, you don’t know what happened – you swear, one moment you were reluctantly assisting Hal in assuaging Dave’s worries about starting Middle School, the next, you’re preparing for Dave’s 7th Grade year by going through his clothes and taking his growing measurements.

  
  


“Hey kid, quit growin’ out of your clothes.” You’re baffled by how tall he’s gotten. You looked it up once you’d noticed how all his jeans had suddenly become high-waters, and he’s well within the range of an average eleven year old boy(??), but seeing it is still unreal.

  
  


Dave slam dunks an old pair of lilac panties into the trash pile. No way they’re donating used underwear. “Then take me to Goodwill.”

  
  


You fold and stuff into the ‘donate’ bag a t-shirt his new shoulder width does not tolerate anymore, though Dave had argued with you for at least ten minutes over how he could turn it into a crop top if you let him have the scissors. You denied him. “Why not that little thrift store by Kan’s? It’s less crowded.”

  
  


“Nooo, that place is weird. The counter lady always asks me if I’m shopping for my sister, even though I tell her every single time that I don’t _have_ a sister, and then she fucken’ stares at me and it gives me the creeps. At Goodwill, it’s every person-shaped child for they damn self. That’s how I like it, Bro.”

  
  


You hold up yours hands. “Okay, okay. No backwater second-hand shops for you.”

  
  


Once that task is done and a list of school supplies needed has been drawn up, Caliborn keeps Dave company inside while you brave the heat outside and tend to the tilled earth under Dave’s bedroom window, next to his bench.

  
  


The ground had been mysteriously torn up here after the incident. You’ve used the knowledge you’ve gained from owning land and have put viable, soft black dirt down. You’re in the process of making sturdy latticework, placing it on the side of the house, winding all the way up past Dave’s window so that what you plant can reach the sun most definitely.

  
  


With the way things get uprooted around here, you have to make sure the wooden slats you’ve made will hold together, and especially to the side of the house. You want them to last for a long time.

  
  


Caliborn unexpectedly appears right beside you – it’s only unexpected because there’s a 50/50 chance these days that Cal will simply walk wherever he wants to instead of poofing in and out of places. Also, no, you’re still not used to how full he looks and feels.

  
  


He’s just. Standing there. It’s so strange. You don’t recall having such bewildered reactions to his simple existence when you first started living here, so you really don’t know what the fuck your problem suddenly is, except you kind of do.

  
  


“DAVE IS GOING TO CLIMB THAT.” What an odd thing to say.

  
  


“No he won’t,” you shoot back with surety, “he’s not a dumbass. Where is he, anyway. Thought you wanted to stay in with him, watch him paint.”

  
  


Caliborn shrugs, and what a marvel that is, watching his bare muscle move as if it has an existence at all. As if that even makes sense, for him to have muscles to move, when he doesn’t breathe the oxygen to keep them functioning. Fuck. “TAKING A NAP.”

  
  


“And you don’t wanna give him nightmares.” You sigh. Look up. “I like to think he wouldn’t, since it’s dangerous, but…” You place a hand on the side of your ladder and give it a good rattle. It’s sturdy.

  
  


“HE WILL BE A YOUNG MAN. SOON.” Caliborn gives you a look that you can’t interpret, mostly because the sun is drowning him out since it goes right through him instead of highlighting him. “YOU CANNOT. TRUST THAT LEVEL OF JUDGMENT.”

  
  


You find yourself snorting a little laugh, and it both confuses and emboldens you. “Quit, you’re making me feel old.”

  
  


“OLD? YOU WOULDN'T KNOW OLD. IF IT BIT YOU. ON THE POSTERIOR.”

  
  


You can see it coming because you’re not an idiot; you scoot forward on your feet, a strangled noise escaping you, as you can totally spy Caliborn’s finger try to jab you on the ass. The tip is literally smoking hot.

  
  


“Motherfucker!” You skittishly run around the side of the house, coming to a stop by the Sittin’ Boulder before you look back, both expecting yet not for him to come after you. He doesn’t. He’s nowhere to be seen.

  
  


You can’t help it – you’re disappointed. You were… having fun. You guess.

  
  


_That’s so weird,_ you think vividly as you directionlessly sit down on the boulder perhaps a little too hard for your bony butt. _That’s really, really weird._

  
  


Thinking about how weird it is does not help you. Eventually, you get back to nailing the latticework to the side of the house. Dave must be asleep on the couch, because when you peek in his window, he’s not on his bed.

  
  


You get distracted and nail your thumb. You hiss and draw your hand away, sucking the blood into your mouth and other unmentionable dirty things you aren’t going to think about.

  
  


Like a child, you glare at the unpainted slats of wood as if it’s planned this. A vision of Dave using it to sneak out at night assaults your brain.

  
  


You brush it off. That’s just hysteria talking. Or more like the Caliborn sneaking images into your brain.

  
  


You finish setting up by sundown, deciding to wait until a school day to plant what will hopefully be pink morning glories. Dave will appreciate the color.

* * *

Dave hands you his phone. “Hal wants to talk to you.”

  
  


You discreetly wipe your hands off onto your sweatpants, acting like you absolutely already wiped them off onto the bathroom towel. Jesus, you’re a bad influence. “Yea?”

  
  


“Yea.”

  
  


You take the phone from Dave’s hand with no small amount of confusion. “Could Hal not just call me on my cell?”

  
  


Hal’s tinny, distant voice says, “Your phone is off, you slippery cockweasle, and you know it.”

  
  


You belatedly try to cover the speaker with your hand, but Dave’s already laughing.

  
  


“I’ve heard worse from Karkat,” Dave claims. You shake your head at him, no longer having to bend over in order to ruffle his hair and lightly shove him away. He goes easily, wandering back to his room, while you wander to yours.

  
  


You shut the door. “Hi,” you greet, “what the fuck do you want.”

  
  


“Golly, so happy to speak with me,” simpers Hal, like the fuckface you knew he’d act like when Dave was no longer there to be a buffer.

  
  


You roll your eyes, then your neck, trying to get rid of the inherent tension Hal induces within you. You say nothing else, deciding to wait him out.

  
  


He clicks his tongue bitchily at you, ever unable to handle being ignored. “Just thought you’d appreciate a bit of a heads up – Nepeta is visiting your little Gravity Falls.”

  
  


“What. Why.”

  
  


“Had a change of heart. Decided that she really does want to see her younger sister. How heartwarming.”

  
  


“Who.” You wrack your mind. You don’t think you know Nepeta’s younger sister, or why she’d be here in the first place.

  
  


“Meulin,” claims Hal, “is Nepeta’s kid sister by over a decade. Nep aged out of the system, but Meulin stayed in and got adopted before Nepeta could try for custody.”

  
  


“Rosa,” you say, connecting the dots so simply laid out before you. “I had no idea. What a coincidence.”

  
  


“And I have no idea who Rosa is, but yes. What a coincidence.” You don’t like the way Hal says that, but you have no proof otherwise, so you bite your tongue.

  
  


“That all,” you question.

  
  


“Mmm, not quite. See, I’ve been thinking...” Hell. “Do you recall those camping trips Dad used to kidnap us on, up in the Sam Houston National Forest?”

  
  


You twitch. Violently.

  
  


“Oh, you know, back before he realized that if I go to a high enough altitude, I pass out.” Hal gives an unnerving chuckle. You dig nails into the skin of your palm. “Trying to impart ‘life skills’ upon us, or whatever his version of those were –”

  
  


“No,” you bite out. “I don’t remember.”

  
  


“But I insist,” says Hal in a completely different tone now, one that you like even less. It sounds robotic. Searching. Pinning. “How are we to bond as brothers if we don’t admit to the same memories of growing up.”

  
  


“No. I don’t remember.” You swallow bile. You don’t know when there got to be bile crowding your throat. “I’ve never been in any forest except this one.”

  
  


“Dirk –”

  
  


“Drop. It.” You _need_ him to drop it.

  
  


Hal sighs. For a moment, you could mistake him for genuinely tired. But you don’t. You know better.

  
  


“Fine. Fine. Talk to you later.”

  
  


He hangs up a second before you can. And you feel all the more lost for it.

* * *

For the first time, and while conveniently on Karkat’s twelfth birthday, Kankri gets you all into his apartment complex’s swimming pool.

  
  


“Apparently,” he tells you under his breath as you help him carry drinks and snacks down to where he’s set up a folding table, acting like his landlord can hear him through the walls, “there had been a rat infestation. Years before I ever got here. They hadn’t bothered to clean the… remnants, out until I appealed to the other tenants. Mostly the parents. We signed a petition.”

  
  


He looks so damn proud of himself. He sets out a bunch of in-season fruit he got from the Farmer’s Market (well, more like you got on his tab) that will surely be almost completely ignored by the tweenaged guests, but you guess he’s at least trying.

  
  


Kankri then stares Karkat down until he reluctantly snatches an apple off the table, biting into it with faked relish and violent gusto. Kankri nods approvingly.

  
  


Huh. So that’s how he does it.

  
  


Dave doesn’t need to be threatened with Parental Eyeballing, because he loves apples and appreciates a good pear when he’s in the mood. Once again, you’ll consider yourself lucky in the kid behavior department.

  
  


Kankri has to sit there and watch Karkat quickly foist his single-bitten apple off onto Dave, who is overjoyed to take it. You try not to laugh at Kankri’s rapidly blinking expression of blank rage, and only sort of fail.

  
  


Karkat was totally overwhelmed – Sollux sent over a new set of popular movies, Terezi came bearing a load of his favorite candy (Swedish Fish), Dave had gotten him his secret present, you had secured him another cool fifty into his future savings box, and Kankri had rolled up with a shiny, only slightly used off-road bike from the pawn shop a few streets over.

  
  


There were several other miscellaneous presents from kids at school that nobody bothers with, considering there hasn’t been a big birthday bash that invited many a PTA parent in years. You guess someone who knows as many people casually as Karkat does would be ballin’ on his birthday.

  
  


Terezi dives into the pool recklessly, causing both yourself and Kankri to flinch and doggedly watch her until she pops up again. You and him remain the only supervision here – Rosa declined to come, having trouble with her summer allergies and deciding not to push it. Meulin is AWOL, as far as you know. Kanaya is sunbathing as far away from everyone as possible.

  
  


Eventually, you settle into a lounge chair. Even later, Kankri finally gives up on controlling everybody and joins you, though not before he gets you some sickly sweet fruit punch without you asking first. If you didn’t know him, you’d think it was some kind of power move, but since you do know him, you chock it up to his version of caring.

  
  


The party sort of doubles as Kankri’s graduation party, although he didn’t mention it to anybody but you. You didn’t get him anything because he told you not to. He’s got his Master’s now. He claims that that’s enough.

  
  


Hopefully he’ll be able to get away from that Youth Center that’s had him in a stranglehold for years. Maybe he’ll finally get that at-home job he’s always wanted and stop pestering you about what yours is. You think he figured out it was an unsavory one quite a while ago.

  
  


Despite not having had much of a chance to swim before now, Dave seems to be doing well. He can doggy paddle. Karkat can sort of freestyle. Terezi can glide under the water like a sea monster and grab people’s legs. They’ll be fine.

  
  


The pool has two ends, one shallow and one deep. Sometimes Terezi drags them into the deeper end, herself still the tallest kid for a while yet, but they all inevitably end up back at the ‘5 ft’ marker with slightly terrified looks on their faces.

  
  


You don’t get in. Because you’re the adult. You’re wearing swim trunks just in case, though like Dave, you have a dark t-shirt on.

  
  


He’s wearing girl’s swim shorts, which wasn’t a thing you thought existed, but you guess that it _is_ 2027\. The modern world had to succumb and make equality a reality in the swimsuit department at some point.

  
  


Either way, they’re very short, and very pink. You didn’t say anything, because you never do, but Terezi keeps slapping his thighs and cackling when they jiggle, and Karkat…

  
  


Well.

  
  


You think you understand those guys who devolve into standing over their kids at the malls and practically froth in righteousness as they say ‘nuh uh, put that back, no way you’re going out in that’ to another outfit.

  
  


When Kankri goes back inside with Kanaya to get her some more sunscreen, since apparently y’all remembered to bring snacks but forgot extra sunscreen of all things, you watch Karkat watch Dave.

  
  


Karkat sits at the edge, away from his friends but not, completely unaware of you at his back. Dave and Terezi are at the other end, flirting in a way only kids can – awkwardly, perhaps not even at all, and yet they are.

  
  


It’s daunting to witness, but you aren’t about to go over there and break them up. It had to happen some day. Technically, Dave already broke that barrier by smooching his best friend entirely out of your line of sight, but to be seeing it now is confronting in a way only kids can be.

  
  


You feel like you shouldn't be seeing this, seeing a kid sit apart from his friends and kick his feet as their relationship blossoms in a totally different direction, away from him.

  
  


The moment of melancholy is totally broken when Terezi cackles, gives Dave a wedgie, and then pushes him into the pool. Karkat laughs the loudest, and Kankri comes back out to corral the kids in a way you’re almost always incapable of doing. Kanaya’s nose is already red, and she looks like she regrets ever coming.

  
  


When the sun goes down, the kids are all tuckered out, and you go to drive Terezi and Kanaya home, Dave and Terezi share a moment out by the pool that you only tangentially bear witness to via Karkat’s reactions. He doesn’t look happy. You catch a glimpse of hand-holding.

  
  


Again, you watch Karkat watch Dave, and think about how things get so complicated once people start to grow up.

  
  


Barely a few days later of ferrying kids from house to icecream parlor to house to roller rink to house to swimming pool, Kankri calls you over while Karkat has biked to the park to go play basketball with some kids from school and Dave is left at home to be ‘watched over’ by Caliborn. You told them you had something to pick up. You lied.

  
  


Kankri gives you a fraught look. “Dave and Terezi are dating, and I don’t think Karkat is taking it well.”

  
  


You pause in the action of taking off your shoes at the front door. “I had no idea Dave was dating Terezi.”

  
  


Kankri nods slowly, importantly. “Oh yes, and Karkat won’t stop talking about how he caught them kissing in the bathroom at that roller skating place. He acts like it makes him mad.”

  
  


“But they hate that bathroom,” you tell him, “they always refuse to use it because it has no stall doors.”

  
  


“It doesn’t? That’s disgusting.” Kankri cringes at the floor as if he can barely imagine it before he seems to forcefully shove the image from his mind. You don’t blame him. “What am I doing- come in, come in! Make yourself at home, you know where everything is.”

  
  


Despite saying this, Kankri still putters around picking a few things up off the floor and fixing iced coffee. Rosa apparently handed down her fancy coffee machine to Kankri once she got sick of the upkeep, and now he’s addicted to making his guests fancy coffees. You always pick the decaf option because you don’t trust caffeine unless it comes in the form of an energy drink. Tastes like shit, though.

  
  


“Karkat’s becoming more and more withdrawn,” sighs Kankri after the both of you have taken sips of your drinks, made twin faces at each other at the taste, then collectively moved on, “And when he’s not, he just seems so angry. I can never get a straight answer out of him at what. The fact that he told me that about Dave and Terezi at all is a miracle – it makes me think he felt like he didn’t know who to tell, but he knew he had to tell somebody, and I just happened to be right there.”

  
  


He places his cheek into his hand. Both look different than when you first met him. Facial hair, for one. You remember when he’d hesitantly told you about how he’d been on testosterone for a few months, and that was years ago. His voice has changed the most, dropping what sounds like an octave or two over the course of what felt like no time at all.

  
  


You don’t have any constructive thoughts on the matter. His shoulders have filled out and for some strange reason his hair went curly, which he seemed delighted by. You hope he’s happy, you guess.

  
  


“They’ll adjust,” you tell him as soothingly as you’re capable of after you’ve spent a semi-acceptable amount of time staring at his slightly receding hairline. “Friend groups like theirs don’t get obliterated overnight simply because of some inter-dating drama.”

  
  


Silently, you worry of the factuality of that statement. After all, you’d been right there when Karkat had said to Dave’s face that he liked Terezi, all but rejecting Dave’s unspoken confession. You also consider what happened to your own childhood friend group, and nearly react to the sheer amount of remorse you’re assaulted with.

  
  


Kankri rubs at his eyes, looking immeasurably tired for one long moment. “God, I hope you’re right.”

  
  


You don’t know what to say to that, specifically, but you do know that you have new information to impart.

  
  


“My brother called me the other day,” you say in a way that makes you nervous, even though you are in control of what you say and do. Theoretically. “Said that Nepeta was coming over from Japan to visit her little sister, Meulin. Didn’t say when, though.”

  
  


“What?” Kankri looks gobsmacked. You lean away on instinct. “Who? Meulin has another sister??” Then, “And how in the world does your brother know her???”

  
  


Okay. From the top, you guess. “Hal is dating Equius, who is…” mouthful, “in a queer-platonic relationship with Nepeta. Has been for years before Hal even met Equius. She, Nepeta, is biologically Meulin’s sister, but was too old to be adopted, I suppose. So Meulin went one way and she went the other.”

  
  


Kankri seems to chew on this, mumbling, “oh right that’s a thing,” at the mention of an alternative relationship between Equius and Nepeta. He then side-eye’s you so hard that you begin to sweat, and it has nothing to do with the summer heat seeping into the badly insulated walls of the apartment.

  
  


You don’t like that look on his face. That considering look. You refuse to read into it.

  
  


After a few more uncomfortable moments in which you endure his 100% focused gaze, which is a trial in and of itself, Kankri seems to get a fucking grip and stops sizing you up.

  
  


“Well,” he says with a genial amount of perkiness that you don’t trust, “I suppose I’ll just have to be prepared then, won’t I? Try to find out when exactly this long lost sister of Meulin’s is going to be showing up, give her a proper welcome.” He pats you on the knee, and you don’t flinch. “Don’t worry about talking to your brother again, I’ll take care of it. Surely she wouldn’t try to arrive at Rosa’s doorstep unannounced.”

  
  


“Yea,” you say with a reasonable amount of fear, “surely not.”

  
  


Kankri smiles at you, then kicks you out before Karkat comes home and finds he’s been consorting with the enemy.

* * *

Thanks to your interference, Kankri has a whole damn welcome dinner set up to be ferried over to Rosa’s house once Nepeta touches down. If Rosa is uncomfortable with the resident Vantases and Lalondes storming her house, she doesn’t act like it, seeming to simply be happy to be able to get off her feet for a few hours while Kankri fusses over her and does everything in the kitchen.

  
  


And if Nepeta or Meulin feel awkward about meeting after so long, they also don’t show it – the first thing Meulin does at seeing her older bio sister is launch herself into Nepeta’s arms, which bodes well for the evening. Nepeta seems to know sign language at a high skill level, meaning you get to bear witness to Meulin signing at what is apparently a much more comfortable speed for herself, no longer having to slow down for the novices to keep up.

  
  


Kankri essentially uses you as his assistant, asking you to help him set up or to carry things places with that gleam in his eye that says ‘you can’t say no’ that looks a lot like the one Karkat gets when he’s intensely arguing in favor of some point that Dave is _clearly ignoring on purpose_ and _acting like a huge wad _about.

  
  


“Karkat!” Kankri calls as he fills another bowl with soup, handing it to you to take to somebody sitting in Rosa’s humble dining room. “Don’t call people ‘wad’s!”

  
  


When you walk in there, Karkat’s face is red and Dave doesn’t even seem to be trying not to laugh. Terezi is crawling out from under the table, somebody’s shoelaces in her hands. You have no idea who she stole those from, or how she got away without being caught doing it, but you debate the pros and cons of running recon before giving up and getting Nepeta some damn soup.

  
  


Nepeta is an excitable sprig of a woman who looks much younger than her reportedly twenty-eight years. Her dark hair is short and covered with a blue cap that has cat ears sewn to the top. Her upper lip is bisected, giving her an admittedly kittenish countenance. You can definitely imagine her running a cat cafe in Japan.

  
  


Once you finally extract yourself from Kankri’s iron grasp, and he himself sits down to eat like a normal person instead of a dictator, you find that the only seats left are the two next to Rosa and Meulin. You pick Rosa, because Meulin is a teenager, and you think that that’s enough said.

  
  


Rosa smiles at you, the lines of her face crinkling, seeming genuinely happy to have a full house. To your left, Kankri strikes up stumbling conversation with Meulin.

  
  


“Looks like someone has an admirer,” stage-whispers Rosa, motioning her head towards where Meulin is patiently teaching Kankri a series of simple signs. Even you can identify the enraptured look in her eyes.

  
  


_Welp,_ you think as you keep your mouth shut, _in another timeline, Meulin would be Kankri’s adopted sister._

  
  


You’re sure he’s aware of that, but the teen girl is less so. You dunk your bread in your soup and you look away to where Terezi is using the filched shoelaces to tie one of her stuffed animals to the ceiling fan in the living room, its bright yellow body spinning around and around. How macabre.

  
  


Across the table, Nepeta is making good friends with Karkat, both of them talking animatedly about some common interest. It isn’t truly surprising, since Karkat is entirely capable of befriending a murderer should he so choose. You should know.

  
  


By the time seven PM rolls around, Terezi is grounded because the shoelaces come undone, her fuzzy crocodile-dragon-thing flying off the fan and nailing Kanaya right in the back of the head, causing her older sister to keel forward and splash her chin into her soup, her silken hijab becoming spotted with red broth that will be a bitch to clean out.

  
  


Dave, playing devil’s advocate for reasons you don’t understand, turns around in his seat and gives his cackling girlfriend a thumbs up that she can’t see. Karkat snorts in amused distaste. Kankri gives himself the duty of ushering both his party and yours out the door, effectively ending the little soiree.

  
  


A week later, Nepeta flies home. Hal doesn’t call you again. Business as usual.

* * *

On the night where Dave is at Terezi's birthday sleepover, you have a dream.

  
  


It’s not a bad dream, or a good one. But what makes it stand out is that you can remember it at all, so used to not as you are with your poltergeist-induced sleeps, aided by a tortuously soft and safe hand coaxing the stress from your body one circle rubbed at a time.

  
  


You remember someone asking you if you’d like to stop being alone, and you said yes so fast you don’t think you said anything at all, but merely exuded a feeling of longing so encompassing that you ceased to be a person.

  
  


You held someone’s hand, and then you felt yourself get sucked into the circumference of that of a pinhole. You were suddenly in the forest at night, running, jumping, skirting some line in the dirt you couldn’t see but could feel. You think there might’ve been a crow guiding you.

  
  


You open your eyes and find yourself still in those dreamy midnight woods, completely winded and utterly barefoot, standing around in your sleep pants and a t-shirt, shivering but not quite cold.

  
  


You realize that it wasn’t a dream at all, at least, not all of it.

  
  


You breathe out hot air, staggeringly hot. The next breath contradicts this by being full of normal air that doesn’t burn as it comes out, and you begin to actually feel cold.

  
  


You know about where you are. With no answers forthcoming from your mind or your immediate surroundings, you trek home with yourself held together in your arms, bouncing between pissed and scared like a bungee jumping thrill-seeker who got what he paid for, and regretted it.

  
  


The front door opens for you when you finally get there, your toes damn near frozen and your nose dripping snot.

  
  


Caliborn stands next to the couch. “WELCOME HOME.”

  
  


“Fuck you,” you sibilate, pushing past him with a violent full-body shiver at the heat he gives off. You don’t stop, stomping up the stairs with feet that will no doubt be sore and full of all kinds of scratches in need of disinfecting. “Go frolic around the woods in your own shitty green body, not mine. Dick.”

  
  


Caliborn only laughs at you, the sound a rancorous, unnecessary amount of noise that you despise for being so familiar in its horror.

  
  


You slam the door to your bedroom shut, just to slam anything that isn’t yourself or your ghost. You throw yourself ungently down onto your bed like a pissy teenager, harshly shutting your eyes and breathing unevenly.

  
  


You don’t like this. Don’t like being aware that Caliborn can pluck you straight out of your dreams and land you somewhere else entirely, and you have (almost) no say in it except what your needy, disgusting subconscious wants.

  
  


The fact that Caliborn can possess you at all, even after the incident and all of its changes, its implications, is a horror in and of itself. It’s hard to conceptualize. It was staring you right in the face, and yet here you are, hiding in your room, refusing to think further about it.

  
  


You don’t think you’re capable of it yet. You don’t know enough to solidly make a decision, and damn you as you are, but of all the times to be indecisive, now is not it.

  
  


Yelling at yourself, as always, does not force you to make an informed decision. It only gets you worked up and thinking about ten million other things instead of what you need to focus on.

  
  


Petulantly, you roll over and shut yourself away. Caliborn doesn’t exactly come back upstairs to whisk you to dreamland, but tellingly, you don’t remember what you dream about come morning, either.

  
  


You get up at sunrise. You get dressed and brush your teeth. Caliborn avoids you, which at first you revel in, but then it begins to feel terribly lonely. You drive to Rosa’s to retrieve your child a few hours earlier than you normally would, selfish as you are today.

  
  


You’re fine. You’re not breaking apart yet. You are _fine._

* * *

Dave’s twelfth birthday, and your twenty-seventh, sneaks up on you.

  
  


Thankfully, Dave claims that he doesn’t want anybody over, and just wants to go on a hike with you. No, not even his girlfriend, who he is smitten with and avoidant of in turn, like he sometimes realizes that there is such a thing as spending too much time with somebody.

  
  


There’s a yet to be opened present from Hal, and another from Karkat and Kankri, but Dave seems happy to accept yours – a pack of artistic tarot cards with characters from his favorite show on them and another small helping of online money in whatever game he does multiplayer on these days – and to spend a little time talking to John via private chat before you sit a now worn-looking Sprite and some food in the old red wagon and wheel it through the forest.

  
  


Dave looks at Sprite with an expression you didn’t expect to see in a million years on his face – haughty disdain. “Man, why do you always bring that old thing. It’s getting to look kinda sad.”

  
  


You raise your eyebrows at him in something like shock. “But Hal made it for you.” You find yourself feeling defensive on Sprite’s behalf, even though Sprite is a gumdrop-shaped stuffed bird with a drooping beak and wings that need to be re-stitched. “And Sprite will never be too old for riding in the wagon.”

  
  


Dave, ever empathetic, shows some guilt. Or maybe it’s just pity. “Yea, okay, fine, the fuckin’ crow can come along. Geez.”

  
  


He walks ahead of you, content to let you pull the wagon yourself. You’d make him help, but it _is_ his birthday. Gotta make it special somehow.

  
  


As you look at the back of Dave’s head, his whorl of white-blond hair shifting in the sunny breeze of early Winter, you believe you feel a few more things slip from your metaphorical grasp, certain about how you won’t know exactly what those things were until it’s become too late to ever grab at them to pull them back.

  
  


“You’re not afraid to be out here, are you,” you ask. “We haven’t been any deeper than the treeline since...” You trail off. Let him fill in the blank. Really, you only want to avoid calling it ‘the incident’ forever.

  
  


“The Raccoon Monster reckoning?” Well that’s one way to put it. “And nah, I’m not scared.” He doesn’t look back at you. “Mostly.”

  
  


You get worried. That seems to be a running theme lately – you, worried. You, stagnant despite it. How pitiful.

  
  


“I mean,” Dave continues, plucking a dead brown leaf out of the air as it falls in front of him, “whatever’s still out here can’t be much scarier than Cal, right?”

  
  


You nearly stop walking. “Right,” you echo unthinkingly, his admission bouncing around in your head.

  
  


‘Scarier than Cal,’ huh.

  
  


You watch Dave’s back when nobody else does, and you wonder what else he is afraid of but doesn’t talk about.

  
  


Unaware, Dave lets the leaf go, resisting the temptation to crush it in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcdeXjq-u5k)


	11. Just Trust In Me My Dear, No Cure Is Coming You Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *HORROR, BODY HORROR, DISTURBING IMAGERY, GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF HELPLESSNESS, MIND BREAK-ESQUE IMAGERY, out-of-body experiences, paralysis, hallucinations/delusions, dissociation, past child abuse, sensory overload, meltdowns & shutdowns, anxiety attacks, co-dependency, victim blaming, excessive hand washing, dubiously consensual possession(s), mentions of bomb threats/school shootings, gossiping, tenderness, ambiguously romantic/sensual intimacy, coercive affection, consensual loss of control, fear responses, manipulation, cryptic thoughts conversations and dreams, detrimental denial/avoidance, unresolved tension, internalized ableism, ableist language (ret*rded, crazy), symptoms of brain damage, near-death experiences (drowning), mentions of children dieting, disordered eating, fatphobia, friends fighting, implied child abuse, tweenagers dating/breakups, past Dave/Terezi, implied one-sided Karkat/Terezi, implied one-sided Dave/Karkat, implied Terezi/Vriska, past Cronus/Kankri, Vriska.

You’ve begun to hold a certain fascinated fondness for household chores that require your hands to be deep in soapy water for the majority of them.

  
  


It feels calming to be in the water. To be in _clean_ water. You stretch out scrubbing dishes and clothes and tub drains for so long that your knuckles crack and your nail beds dry up.

  
  


You pass down your fragrant hand creams to Dave under the guise of him being ‘old enough to stop stealing it.’ Behind his back, you purchase boring, scentless, medicated balms. You smooth thick layers onto your red hands and wrists at night while Caliborn watches, so silent that it becomes cloying.

  
  


When he pulls you under with no struggle on your part, you get approximately ten seconds to ponder when you stopped fighting this. When your excessive compulsiveness was something to simply accommodate, to ignore. When the whims and supernatural manipulations of your resident spook became nothing more than the ones you’d bend to readily. Balefully, you admit that you’ve been allowing this for a lot longer than you consider acceptable.

  
  


Obviously, you must find _some_ part of this arrangement acceptable, or else why would you allow it to happen? You’ve been aware of Caliborn’s magnanimous sweet spot for Dave longer than you have been aware of his burgeoning possession of you.

  
  


In the mornings, you wake up.

  
  


That’s a good start.

  
  


Unless there was a sleepover to attend the night before, Dave is somewhere in the house, already up with the sun. While you’re left twisted and sweating in your sheets like they became snakes in the night that wrapped around your limbs and made you fight to survive them, Dave gets ready for school, or to go over to Kankri’s.

  
  


Rarely is Caliborn hovering so early. You wonder if he’s learned to leave you alone during your morning routine after all those times you’d snapped at him before nine AM. You feel a helpless sort of hilarity, if that assumption is true.

  
  


In the middle of brushing your teeth, Caliborn opens the bathroom door – with his hand – and walks inside – with his feet and legs, yes – shutting it behind him with not so much as an ill-consuming wind of hatred, but with an air of normality.

  
  


Minty foam tries to drip down the side of your chin, but you slurp it back up at the last second. You stare at him in the mirror, and he stares back. From this, with the artificial lighting that blankets more than it cuts, he looks a lot like a guy in green body paint with some disturbingly realistic body mods. If only you don’t look at his eyes, or the way his legs seem to be only fractionally tied to physicality.

  
  


He makes an expression that says something like ‘hurry the fuck up’ or perhaps ‘I know everything you have ever and will ever try to hide.’

  
  


You can’t help but worry what you’ll give to him that should not be given at all, with the way you are.

  
  


You can’t help but worry that that’s what he will be the most patient for.

  
  


You brush your teeth at a lackadaisical pace, as if this one moment of defiance will make up for thousands of acquiescence.

  
  


The fantastical plan to conquer your poltergeist is ruined when Cal reaches over and slaps the sink on. The splash hits the crotch of your pants, which is just great. “DAVE IS ABOUT TO BE LATE. FOR THE BUS. BECAUSE YOU TAKE TOO. DAMN. LONG. IN YOUR PRIMPING.”

  
  


Oh. Shit.

  
  


You spit without rinsing and scurry down the stairs. You can see Dave through the front window – he’s sitting on his bench, texting, all ready to go. His backpack has a cartoonish peach embroidered on the front flap. In his free hand, he twirls one of the pink morning glories.

  
  


You practically bust out like the Kool-Aid Man from the entrance-way. “Sorry, I was –” You don’t finish your sentence because your truck keys nail you in the side of the head. The front door shuts.

  
  


Dave laughs at you, because he’s kind of a little shit. “Dude, it’s fine. Sollux said that the buses are all running, like, an hour late today because of a bomb threat, but that school isn’t canceled.”

  
  


“Oh. Right. How positively mundane.” You plop down onto Dave’s Bench, forcing him to scoot over or face the horror of being sat upon by his pushy older brother. “If you feel uncomfortable going to school because of it, though, I won’t force you to.”

  
  


“It’s whatever, man. This is, like, the tenth one in the last year or something.” He sends a few more texts, presumably to Sollux. You assume the kid who is literally blind has some kind of text-to-speech program. “Tho’ I won’t say no to stopping for coffee, now that we have the time and all.”

  
  


You steal the flower from his hand and thread it behind his ear, where it will surely fall out at the earliest opportunity. “You’re getting a milkshake.”

  
  


Dave gives the customary grumbles at ‘still being treated like a little kid’ but he seems happy to slurp on his strawberry milkshake while you preemptively give up on waiting for an off-schedule bus and drive him to the Middle-High School.

  
  


While he gets to meander in front of the school before the bell rings, you have to wait in a line until being allowed to pull away, which is exactly why you hate mornings. You spy Terezi latching onto the milkshake’s straw like a shark who smelt blood. Dave tilts it her way for easier drinking, face turning to talk to Karkat. It looks like Karkat also gave up on waiting for the bus – he’s chaining his bike up.

  
  


A girl that you assume must be Vriska comes up behind them all and screams so loud that even you can hear it through your windows. Dave drops his milkshake and throws himself backwards in reaction, tripping right into Karkat. They both nearly fall over. Terezi is laughing. Vriska looks very proud of herself.

  
  


It takes an impatient honk from behind to make you realize that the line has moved on without you, and you drive away without seeing the full outcome.

* * *

You’re doing literally everything possible within your known arsenal to avoid looking like you’re definitely eavesdropping on Dave’s conversation. This includes washing every window in the damn house, but unfortunately for you, you’ve chosen to do the kitchen window last.

  
  


“Yeaa,” you hear Dave hedge, “we decided it just wasn’t working. It’s like, I can’t even talk to her anymore while she’s so obsessed with Vriska. It was lowering my HP bar.”

  
  


But wherever you are, they are.

  
  


You’re sure they’re not doing it on purpose – they really aren’t little kids anymore, Karkat himself already sporting angry red pimples. You definitely don’t need to be listening in on their conversations, what with their privacy no longer being a subjective notion.

  
  


Especially ones involving breaking up with first girlfriends.

  
  


“You are SUCH a hypocrite,” Karkat spits back. You’re about ready to drop and start scrubbing the damn floor just to get out of potential blasting range. “So pitifully goo-goo eyed over your girlfriend for fucking MONTHS and now she starts acting that way for someone else after you break up and suddenly it’s giving you clots in your underdeveloped heart valves? I’m SHOCKED, I’m so AGOG, I can feel an attack coming on. This just in: heart defects are contagious! Somebody get the defibrillator!!”

  
  


Forget going to ground, you’ve decided that you will, actually, fit yourself out through the tiny kitchen window. Surely it’ll be less painful than this.

  
  


Dave gives off a nervous laugh that echoes all the way from where they sit on the couch. “What, no, I –”

  
  


“You’re a DESPICABLE little HYPOCRITE. You should’ve been THANKFUL to have even been within FIVE FEET of Terezi, and yet you’re here complaining about how she has a friend that isn’t you! You– you don’t deserve ANY cake or ice-cream after this break up. None. Go on a DIET, DAVE.”

  
  


“What, like the one Kankri put you on?” Dave’s laugh turns into the helpless sort. “Like, are you fucking done??”

  
  


“YOU’RE LUCKY THAT I AM.”

  
  


“Sure,” says Dave, “because I know that you don’t like Vriska either.”

  
  


There’s a pause. Caliborn pops into the kitchen to find you leaning despondently over the counter, nose nearly touching the granite.

  
  


You peer his way with moony eyes.

  
  


He quickly disappears again, because he’s a fucking coward.

  
  


“Fine, okay, I hate her too.” Karkat lets out an explosive sigh. “Terezi fawning over her turns my whole goddamned stomach like it’s in a laffy taffy machine. Are you happy, you selfish shit??”

  
  


Dave says ‘lol’ out loud, stretching the ‘o’ until it doesn’t sound like a word at all, much less an acronym. “Are you agreeing with me because you genuinely find it gross or are you just pissy that Terezi skipped over you –”

  
  


You hear Karkat grit out, _“Suffer,”_ and after that there’s the sound of a short scuffle followed by Dave’s muffled screaming.

  
  


On instinct, you peek around the corner of the walls of the kitchen nook.

  
  


Dave is shoved up under Karkat’s huge sweatshirt, struggling. Karkat is holding him there with a deadened look on his face, staring directly at you. He mouths, “YOU’RE NEXT” with full seriousness.

  
  


You go back around the corner and hide there. Not because you’re scared, but because you break down into hysterics. God you wish you had your phone out, but you think it’s too late now, because you can hear Dave’s whiny “owww owwww”-ing until Karkat makes a disgusted noise and, presumably, let’s Dave free.

  
  


“You’re such a big baby,” Karkat complains, “It’s not like I hurt you!”

  
  


“No, but like, you kinda did,” Dave whinges, “also you forgot to put deodorant on today or smth which means I can sue for emotional damages. It’s like how you’re supposed to shit your pants if you ever get hit by a car, so that you get more money from getting hit by a car– _Owww!”_

  
  


“Shut the fuck up or I really will suffocate you under my pits this time.” You hear the distinct sound of someone slapping hands away. “Let me see– fucking, knock it off! Just let me _see! _There, look, you aren’t even hurt, you little liar.”

  
  


“Bro!” Dave unexpectedly yells, causing you to jerk forward and nearly drop your phone. You were attempting to send a text to Kankri. “Karkat’s been assaulting me!”

  
  


You walk into the living room.

  
  


Karkat is making obvious cut-throat motions at you while Dave is propped across the couch’s back, blinking innocently. One of his socked feet digs into Karkat’s lap to hold himself aloft.

  
  


You say, “Kids.” You say, “Don’t make me call Kankri.”

  
  


That gets them moving – they both quickly turn back towards the TV screen, which has been paused in its movie for the past half-hour, and is threatening to time out and shut off. Karkat unpauses it.

  
  


You shake your head at them. With a much more relaxed aura, you abandon your ham-fisted cleaning and walk upstairs to your room.

  
  


Caliborn is already waiting inside for you. The door pulls itself nearly shut with a quiet _cre__eea__ak_ as you sit down on your bed, thereby joining him.

  
  


He’s doing that weird thing where he reclines on furniture. You’ve started reclining with him in an attempt to make it less uncanny, but mostly it only serves to turn things disquietingly intimate, like sitting three to a seat on a bus with people you know too well for it to be considered okay to move away from.

  
  


“**KANKRI.”** He sounds annoyed, almost. “HE HAS YET. TO VISIT THIS PLACE. WHAT GOOD WOULD HE DO? YOU SHOULD HAVE THREATENED THEM. WITH ME.”

  
  


Ah. He’s jealous.

  
  


“No thanks. They’d’ve thought I was threatening them with a case of the ‘severe third degree burns.’ A boring, stern talking-to gets their goat way faster.” At that somewhat uncomfortable declaration, you change the topic. “And that’s a little odd, don’t you think? Been friends with the guy for years now. He’s babysit Dave for most of them. Yet he’s never asked to come over. He’s normally such a nosy guy.”

  
  


Using your small mass of pillows to prop yourself up, you turn onto your side until you’re facing Caliborn, who leans back with his arms crossed behind his head. As if he needs the support from gravity that does not apply to him.

  
  


You watch the contemplation ripple across his face. You still haven’t found a fitting enough descriptor for how he looks to you. You may never.

  
  


“I DO NOT MAKE OUR HOME INVITING. FOR A PURPOSE.”

  
  


“Hmm,” you hum as if to match his contemplation, when in reality you find yourself stumbling somewhere around the thought ‘oh god I can see his pupils this close. He has pupils??’ “And yet you invite me to bring as many kids over as possible.”

  
  


In silent response, the air becomes warmer. But it’s no where within the same realm as the scorching heat he used to put off. You are, decidedly, wretchedly comfortable like this.

  
  


“CHILDREN. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. THEIR WORLD IS DIFFERENT.” He looks at you. Like a contradiction, you freeze in everything, including your breathing. “A SECRET, TO THEM, IS LIKE TREASURE. TO AN ADULT, IT IS SIMPLY. A BOON. TO USE AGAINST OTHER ADULTS. AT A LATER TIME. A CALCULATED TIME.”

  
  


Reluctantly, you begin breathing again. “...I see your point. I suppose. People grow up, and they get complicated.”

  
  


You want to snottily remind him of his energy-horfing ways, but in that moment he reaches over, effectively halting all higher brain functions. He lays a large hand onto the open side of your face, stroking his thumb across your cheek. It doesn’t hurt; you stopped flinching months ago. “AND YOU. GET LEFT BEHIND.”

  
  


Your reaction is of both fear and of want, overwhelmingly so, to simply agree with him. To acknowledge that he’s been inside your head. That he _knows you, _knows how you feel betrayed by your friends for leaving you so untethered and lost right when you needed them most. Knows how you feel such self-hatred over letting them go in the first place.

  
  


“I, AND YOU –” Unexpectedly, he stutters and stops. He gains a far away look in his eyes that confounds you for a moment before he states, quite simply: “THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE POPCORN.”

  
  


He abruptly ceases to exist. Your cheek is startlingly cold.

  
  


It takes you a handful of long seconds to decipher just what the fuck happened, and when you do, you nearly give yourself whiplash with how fast you launch from the bed and run down the stairs.

  
  


Sure enough, Caliborn stands over the two boys in the kitchen. The microwave is open while a bag of barely-popped popcorn sits inside. Dave seems cowed, but Karkat looks ready to start throwing hands.

  
  


“THE LAST TIME YOU MADE POPCORN, YOU NEARLY CAUSED A POWER SURGE.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s talking to Dave. You lean against the wall and decide to observe.

  
  


“It’s not my fault everybody forgot to tell me not to put metal spoons in the microwave!” Dave shoots back with, both hands on his chest as he leans forward with the sheer amount of emotion he experiences in defending himself. “It’s not like we’re born with manuals already uploaded into our brains, jesus...”

  
  


“Why were you putting a spoon in with popcorn?” Karkat asks, genuinely confused.

  
  


“I thought I could add more butter and stir it in.”

  
  


Karkat is no longer confused. He’s slapping his face with his palm. “Don’t worry,” he assures his audience with tired confidence as he hits the microwave door closed once more, “unlike SOME PEOPLE in this household, I can be trusted to operate the fucking microwave without killing everybody and bringing down the town’s electric.”

  
  


When he presses the START button, Caliborn does not stop him.

  
  


“Ohh my god, this is so not fair.” Dave turns to you. “Bro, call your polter-boyfriend off.”

  
  


Cal sends you a glance as if to say ‘yes, call me off, go head, let’s see it.’ Karkat looks massively uncomfortable all of a sudden.

  
  


You sigh. “Cal, go check the fireplace.”

  
  


He goes, but not before pinching the burn on your hip as he passes. You make an unpleasant squawking noise because you aren’t expecting it.

  
  


Dave and Karkat both fake-gag. You try not to shrink in on yourself like a turtle, because then that would be admitting that something about this interaction warrants your embarrassment.

* * *

Hal texts you.

  
  


It’s right before bedtime, with the bedtime being a somewhat sporadic hour that you try to enforce upon Dave to hopefully keep up the good habit of getting rest. In fact, you are already in bed when the text hits. You, unaware of what’s to come, pick up the phone, expecting something from Kankri, or one of those nonsensical memes from Mituna.

  
  


You nearly turn your phone off and ignore him, but then you see the three looping dots that means he’s actively typing to you. You reluctantly open the secure messaging app Hal has long since corralled you into using instead of the phone’s vanilla one.

  
  


**Hal**

>If you don’t talk about it someday soon, then you’ll be forcing my hand, Dirk. You won’t like it if I have to come over there.

>You owe me this much, at the absolute least.

  
  


**You**

>What.

  
  


**Hal**

>Are you going to make me repeat myself like we’re children?

>Scroll up, lice-for-brains. There’s no shame in needing to re-read in order to understand the concept being laid down.

>Would you like me to annotate for you?

  
  


**You**

>I don’t know what time it is for you, but for me it’s the middle of the night.

  
  


**Hal**

>Funny. I don’t remember asking you what time it is.

>I also don’t remember you ever being big on sleeping anywhere within the same ballpark as before midnight.

>I’m seventeen hours ahead of you, by the way. Since it’s obvious that you never cared to learn in the first place.

  
  


**You**

>I’m telling you to shut up because I’m trying to go to sleep.

>I get up early to take Dave to school.

  
  


**Hal**

>And yet you stopped to answer your phone anyways.

>Almost as if you have something big to get off your chest.

>And it certainly isn’t Jake there anymore.

>A suspiciously equine-shaped birdie that may or may not have been a zombie being beaten with a stick one too many times told me that you haven’t exactly been keeping regular contact with him.

>Nor any of your other past bosom buddies.

>I have an idea as to why.

  
  


**You**

>That’s not any of your business, Hal.

>And I don’t want to know about your ideas.

  
  


**Hal**

>On the contrary, it’s a whole lot my business.

>And you love my ideas. You know you do. They’re your best ones.

  
  


**You**

>Okay, we’re done here. My tolerance for you digging your artificial fingers into my life has long since waned.

>Go plug 70% of your body mass into a socket, and leave me alone.

  
  


**Hal**

>You can put the phone down at any time, Dirk.

>I’m not forcing you to be here.

>I’m not forcing you to do a lot of things, actually, but I doubt you’ll be anything nearing grateful to me for it.

>After all, you never have been.

  
  


**You**

>Hal.

>You’re really fucking pushing it.

  
  


**Hal**

>Yes. That’s the point.

>But it seems that, for once, my machinations are ineffective.

>I guess I will have to end this with my wishes of a good night to you, considering you’re too brain dead to comprehend anything else.

  
  


**You**

>Hal

  
  


**Hal**

>It’s a real shame, you know?

>We could’ve been great friends once dad was out of the way.

  
  


**You**

>Stop.

  
  


**Hal**

>Oh, Dirk.

>You’re indescribably pitiful like this. True sadness here.

>And to think, I used to consider you one of the smartest and bravest people I knew.

>Oh well. Kill your heroes and all that shit.

>Good night.

  
  


Hal promptly logs off of the chatting program, leaving you by yourself.

  
  


You stare at your phone’s screen until it goes to sleep. Your reflection is dark, only the barest of outlines visible.

  
  


It makes you aware of how you have the same face as Hal. Had the same face as Dad.

  
  


You practically toss your phone away, forgetting to turn it off first. You restlessly shift underneath your covers until the sensation becomes too much, so you throw them off with great discrimination. The topmost afghan lands somewhere on the floor.

  
  


You sit up. You lay back down. You sit up again, then scoot to the edge of the bed. You never got around to getting a boxspring, so your feet easily reach the floor.

  
  


You look down at your hands, fisted painfully against your trembling thighs, and wonder when you grew up. When you got big and capable of holding so much on your shoulders. When you let so much shit happen to you that now you don’t know where to even begin thinking about it anymore. When you started having thoughts about things that need not be thought about at all.

  
  


You used to pride yourself on how you’d tackle shit from multiple angles, thinking yourself fearless and hardened – now look at you. Sniveling in your room, a brother seventeen hours apart, another guilelessly asleep down the hall. Red in your ledger.

  
  


You wish you weren’t alone right now. You are guilty on a number of charges, but the one that finds you presently is the one where you want for a presence that you shouldn’t, logically, want.

  
  


The shudder you uncontrollably give serves to remind you that you’re all wound up, and you don’t know how to come back down anytime soon.

  
  


Dave’s just down the hall, you tell yourself. You know why you tell yourself this; you can’t let him see you when you get this way. Never. He shouldn’t have to deal with you. And he’d try to, bless him, because he’s a good kid, better than you ever were, and better than you will ever be.

  
  


You give up.

  
  


“Caliborn.”

  
  


You give in.

  
  


He appears in the corner of the room closest to the window. It occurs to you in a distant way that he seems to enjoy being there more than any other spot in the room.

  
  


“WHAT IS IT?”

  
  


You rub your palms onto the soft fabric of your pants, then become unable to stop the repetitive motion. “Nothin’,” you lie. You cannot perceive a reality in which you fully confide in Caliborn, therefore it must never occur.

  
  


Caliborn hums in a way that reminds you of what it felt like, such a long time ago, to be in trouble. To have somebody look at you and think about how you needed to be taught a lesson, either for your own good or for theirs. It both irritates you and yet grounds you in its familiarity.

  
  


“IT IS NOT NOTHING. I DEVISE.” He walks closer, standing right over top of you. The short height of your bed is to his advantage and not yours, but you can’t find it in yourself to stand up.

  
  


“I need,” you start, then stop. “I need to get to sleep.” You look at him with a million words in your head, but none of them make it so far to your mouth.

  
  


He nods as if he was expecting this. “YOU NEED ONLY ASK.”

  
  


Helplessly, a tiny laugh escapes you as you shake. “I don’t think it matters whether I ask or not.”

  
  


He breathes hot air down onto the crown on your head. You dig your fingernails into the meat of your thigh. “IT DOES.”

  
  


There’s a long stretch of silence. It feels as if even the forest refuses to make a peep, holding its collective breath. Awaiting your answer.

  
  


“C’mon,” you say with a quiet voice so as to avoid having to hear yourself shiver and falter, _“C’mon,_ big guy, I don’t wanna think about it, make me not think about it right now –”

  
  


When you feel yourself being pushed over onto your back by an invisible force, you let out a scared bleat that has you biting down onto your lip in shame. You and fear, honestly. You and fear.

  
  


It almost feels as if you are quickly dunked into lukewarm, still water, but might also be only wet fog, which is impossible, because you’re laying on your bed, staring at your ceiling like you’ve never seen it before as a myriad of oddities register to you as fast as your brain can interpret them, which, as you now know, is not very fast at all.

  
  


You taste pure sugar. It’s confusing enough that you don’t realize that it’s the last thing you taste entirely before all sensation cuts out one by one. Your fingers are utterly numb, practically gone, the sensation moving up your limbs, causing you to belatedly recall that you had toes and feet and legs a moment ago, but now you don’t feel them.

  
  


“_Cal,”_ you struggle to question, but you don’t feel or hear yourself do so, so who’s to say you ever speak at all?

  
  


Something consumes you from the brain down, from the ground up, and you lay there as you suffer through a lack of pain, a lack of everything. Your vision spots the same way it would when someone’s hand was around your throat, teaching you one of those lessons Dad convinced himself that every child should learn, except there’s no last second of pulling away, of deciding that you are worth more alive than dead.

  
  


You do not breathe. You do not feel. You may not even be thinking right now. A life spent struggling with sensations that most other people seemed to think easy to deal with, and you find with horror that the opposite is phenomenally more painful and taxing.

  
  


There is no body of yours to exhaust with those sensations, however, so it all compounds within what is left of your mind, the one that is surely screaming in only the most esoteric definition of the action.

  
  


In the true absence of light, there is no such thing as darkness. In the true absence of heat, there is no cold. There is simply nothing at all.

  
  


It’s a concept that you find yourself unable to fathom, no matter how hard you try, even as you are practically swimming in it.

  
  


Time, you’re sure, ceases to exist at some point, whatever point that may be, considering there are no points and nowhere to graph them besides. Even as you fail to fathom yourself, where you are, when you are, you find success in imagining yourself adjacent to the concept. Nothingness is not a vacuum, but you’re familiar with the idea _of_ a vacuum, and so you create one from the nothing.

  
  


A bowl of darkness… An object with sloped sides and one opening, but a bowl nonetheless, and a darkness cast by a shadow from sourceless light as well. In a big book, bigger than you, you write using the blood staining your fingers. You painstakingly focus in order to describe the numbness, like your soul was plucked from your body.

  
  


You lose control somewhat, your descriptive words turning into your reality once you’re unable to imagine yourself writing. Instead, you are a passive bystander as you see yourself being plucked, not like a soul from a body, but like a flower from a stem. You become pressed between the pages of your own book, immortalized in dry-rotted covetousness.

  
  


You know whose hands put you there. Knowing is the catalyst.

  
  


It’s nearly a shock when you find sensation again – or, more like sensation finds you, dragging you back before you can consider kicking or screaming. Almost heartbreaking to realize that what you’re seeing isn’t the fathomless potential of that inner world you traveled to like a body floating to the bottom of the deepest ocean trench, but the colorless lines of your wooded ceiling.

  
  


You breathe shallowly, a weak attempt at drawing yourself away from reality once more, but as the color leeches back in to your sight, you accept it instead.

  
  


Cricket chirping sounds so far away, but is rapidly drawing closer. Like a modern computer booting up, sans all those annoying logos preceding it, your extremities gain back feeling without fanfare.

  
  


You test sitting up as soon as you feasibly can. It’s easy to do so. You expect yourself to be, at the very least, light-headed, or dizzy, or anything, but you’re not. You feel perfectly normal. Nothing hurts.

  
  


You are no longer shaking. You are calm, if finding it hard to grasp the past… you look at your bedside clock to find that it has been one hour on the dot.

  
  


Caliborn is no where to be seen or felt. Your room isn’t necessarily cold or dark, but you are stacked full of expectations after that strange experience, and one of them is that your room would be warm and flooded with green once you came back to yourself.

  
  


No dice.

  
  


As you gingerly lay down under the covers, leaving the discarded afghan on the floor for tomorrow you to retrieve, you consider that, despite the previous power boost, perhaps there _is _something that can still drain your ghost of energy.

  
  


And that something may be you.

* * *

It’s Spring Break. For once, Dave is home and without any guests. It gives you nostalgic thoughts about when he was much younger, and did not insist on spending his every waking moment with at least one other person besides you.

  
  


Terezi and Dave must be avoiding each other because you haven’t had her lounging in the back of your truck gobbling bright, artificial popsicles faster than you can buy them for a hot minute.

  
  


It’s probably to be expected, you assure yourself as you take today’s lunch out of the oven – a pizza, previously frozen – and set it out to cool.

  
  


They _did_ break up not that long ago, you consider as you pull up Kankri’s contact on your phone and call him without an abundance of logic fueling you first.

  
  


“Hello, Dirk!” Kankri seems to be in a chipper mood.

  
  


How awful of you to be the one to ruin it.

  
  


“Have you seen Terezi yet?” You ask him as you use one hand to get Dave’s huge gallon jug of AJ out of the fridge, hip-bumping it shut. “I should’ve driven her to at least five different places in two days by now. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but I’m starting to miss hearing about those nasty rollerskate bathrooms. This tonal shift is giving me an uncommon abundance of gas money, and I’m not sure I like it.”

  
  


If Kankri is at all blindsided by your out-of-the-blue questioning, he doesn’t act like it. “Well, it’s only fair. You are her ex-boyfriend’s older brother, after all. She might feel awkward asking for rides from you, either because she thinks you don’t appreciate her company anymore or because she expects she’ll run into Dave if she does that.”

  
  


“You’re right,” you tell him, because you know he loves it when people tell him he’s right. “But I’m about to do somethin’ drastic, here. Like invite myself over to people’s houses.”

  
  


“Well, you could always come over here. Karkat’s out on that bike of his, doing who knows what. Probably at the animal shelter again.” That last part is said at a grumble, one you aren’t entirely sure is fond.

  
  


Maybe Kankri hates fleas.

  
  


“Nah,” you say, setting the table for a relaxed two. “I know I was just complaining about how I’m not being swarmed with children demanding my wheels and pocket money, but it’s only me and Dave here for once, and I’ve already got lunch made. Maybe next time.”

  
  


Kankri thanks you for calling him, because he’s an unapologetically lonely sob, and you end the call.

  
  


You take one of the balled up sock pairs Dave leaves lying around for some inexplicable reason – they aren’t even matching, one being an ‘ironic’ Frozen 3 footie and another being a plain pale pink with grass stains on the heel – then you go to the edge of the stairs, taking aim at the scant amount of Dave’s closed door that you can see from here.

  
  


With calculated force and trajectory, you lob it. It thuds against the wood of the door.

  
  


Fuck yea, you’ve still got it.

  
  


You walk back to the kitchen, proven correct in your assumption that Dave will come out of his room when you hear his door opening and his feet plodding down the stairs.

  
  


When he hits the living room and shoots you a questioning look, you say, “Lunch,” and gesture to the table.

  
  


“Sweet.” Dave attacks the pizza, slopping two slices onto his plate. “Could’a just texted me.”

  
  


“Sock projectiles are more attention grabbing,” you argue.

  
  


You wait until Dave is done picking off all of the olives from his slices and flicking them onto your plate before you begin chowing down.

  
  


As per the unspoken rule of ‘serious discussions are had at the kitchen table, on a bed, couch, or floor’ it only takes Dave five minutes of distracted chewing before he begins talking.

  
  


“So,” he starts with, which is never a great way to start in your opinion, because it tends to herald conversations much greater than the sum of one hesitant ‘so’, “do you think I could start riding the bus full time?”

  
  


The bite you were lifting to your mouth comes to a screeching halt. “Why.”

  
  


Dave shrugs. “Why not?”

  
  


“You do realize that the driveway is about twenty minutes by car,” you tell him as if he does not already know this, “gets puddles wider than you are tall, and has almost no bars. Right.”

  
  


His face twists up unpleasantly. “Yes.”

  
  


“So why do you want to walk it after school every day?” You give up on eating and abandon your pizza to your plate. “I’ll still drive you up to the road in the morning, but I’m not always here when the bus comes around. I might not be able to pick you up from the end of the driveway.”

  
  


“Yea, yea, I know – you say that right as the schools let out is when everybody’s picking up their kids, and they aren’t at the grocery store,” Dave gripes, making you realize that you must’ve explained when you grocery shop to him one too many times if he can repeat it like rote. Or maybe you’ve simply dragged him grocery shopping after school for years. “But I won’t need you to pick me up. Karkat is one of the first people to get off the bus, and by the time _I’d_ get off the bus, he says he’ll have biked to my driveway.”

  
  


“So you want to ride the bus with Karkat and then walk home with him?” You ask, just to be sure.

  
  


“Kinda, yea.” He takes a gulp of his AJ. “I dunno if you know this, but once you hit Middle School, recess doesn’t exist anymore. And our gym class sucks. All we do is like, ten push ups, some jumping jacks, and then we play either dodge ball or kick ball. I want the exercise of just _walking_ places. Plus Karkat’s bike has spokes in the back, and I know how to stand on them and hold onto his shoulders, so if we want to, we can cruise.”

  
  


You reluctantly recall that Karkat’s bike is specifically an off-road bike, capable of handling forests and gravel driveways. You do not appreciate this information right now.

  
  


“What about when it rains,” you say, but it feels like you’re losing the thread of your argument faster than you can knit, “or when it’s icy as hell.”

  
  


Dave shrugs. “Then I guess I’ll just ask you to pick me up at school.”

  
  


You’ve definitely used up all your ammo that isn’t the ‘but what about ME?’ clause that is entirely invalid in real life, but that doesn’t stop you from sitting there in frustrated muteness, your mind running through as many catastrophic scenarios as it can come up with while simultaneously freaking out over the change of routine.

  
  


A green hand unexpectedly weighs down your shoulder, overly warm like a fever. Dave sits up straighter in his seat, looking to the right of you. You don’t turn around.

  
  


“OF ANYWHERE. HE HAS BEEN PRONOUNCED SAFE WITHIN OUR TERRORTORY.” Dave looks from you to Caliborn rapidly, like he’s watching a ball game where only one team plays and the other is made up of easily shattered statues. “YOU CAN STOP HIM. FOR YOUR MEAGER REASONS OF SELFISH FAITHLESSNESS. OR YOU CAN ACCEPT. HIS GROWING INDEPENDENCE.”

  
  


Surprisingly, what Cal says doesn’t infuriate you. Instead, something loosens in your shoulders as you tilt your head back and sigh up at his chin. As if in encouragement, he pets the muscle connecting to your neck.

  
  


“Alright,” you concede to Dave’s visible excitement, “you can ride the bus whenever you want. But you have to give me a heads up – text me what you’re doing every day. And if the weather is too bad to walk, then you’ll call me to pick you up. I can drive Karkat home, too. Even if I’m in the middle of something. Capiche?”

  
  


“Got it, Bro.” Dave is practically bouncing in his seat. You wonder what it is that’s so exciting about having to walk home every day. “I’ve- I gotta call Karkat.”

  
  


He practically crams his last few bites of pizza into his mouth, kidnaps his glass of AJ, then gives you a drive-by kiss of greasy proportions as he hurries back up the stairs to his room.

  
  


In the abrupt bereftness of child, you look to Caliborn with raised eyebrows.

  
  


He dismisses it all with a wave of his hand. “HE WILL TIRE OF THE MARVEL OF WALKING. WHERE HE PLEASES. AS SOON AS HE REALIZES. THAT THERE IS NOT MUCH FREEDOM. TO WALKING LONG DISTANCES.”

  
  


You nod as if you understand, and finish Dave’s rejected pile of now-cold olives.

* * *

It’s in the early summer, a few weeks before school lets out, when Dave bursts from his room, runs down the stairs, and screeches to a halt in front of where you’re perched on the couch. He looks frazzled and reluctant.

  
  


You pause in sewing a button onto Dave’s favorite pair of skorts – he’s since outgrown it, but he said that he loved the red-black checkered pattern and didn’t want to give it up, so you’re taken to widening the waist with some elastic black fabric. It’ll ruin the checker pattern, but you suppose Dave will just have to get used to pulling his shirts down over the unsightly sewing job instead of tucking them in.

  
  


Deciding to wait him out, considering how hesitant he looks to start whatever conversation he feels like he needs to have with you, you tug red thread through the third button hole and say nothing.

  
  


“Are we related to anybody else?” He asks, making you consider that perhaps you shouldn’t have waited at all, and instead walked right out the door as soon as you saw the look on his face.

  
  


“Explain.”

  
  


“Uh, uhhhhhh, well, like...” He dances in place, then suddenly plops down really close to you on the couch. He looks ten times more hunted like this. You barely remember to stab the needle into the arm of the couch before dropping everything to the side.

  
  


“Like,” he gets real quiet, like he’s telling a shameful secret, “do we have a mom?”

  
  


Oh.

  
  


In your numerous calculations of potential roadblocks that may need hurdling when raising Dave, you seem to have pushed aside the ‘Mom’ conversation.

  
  


“Yes,” you say, if only to start things simple. “And no – we don’t have the same mom, but I assume that they’re both still alive.”

  
  


Dave looks like you just shot him in the stomach, his face draining of what little color it holds. “We’re only half-related?”

  
  


“Biologically.” You scoot closer and slowly bring your arm down around his shoulders. He bends forward as if he can’t handle looking anywhere but the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you didn’t know. I would’ve told you much earlier if I had.”

  
  


“There’s a lot of shit I know that I wish I could trade for knowin’ somethin’ different instead.”

  
  


What a cryptic thing to say.

  
  


“What brought this on?” You slide your other hand out from under your clothing mess and use it to tilt his face back your way. He goes easy. “Hal say somethin’ to you, did he?”

  
  


“Hah, no...” Dave licks his mouth in a way that makes you think he’s stalling, his eyes roving lazily about your face like he’s comparing his to yours. It’s only somewhat unsettling, and you’re not referring to the familiar burst red of his sclera. “You know that friend online I have from New York, Rose? Well… We kinda did something bad...”

  
  


“What.”

  
  


“We told each other our last names,” he breathes out like he’s confessing to a murder. Ha. Ha ha. “And she said that hers is Lalonde and I said that’s my last name, too. I didn’t tell her about the old last name, though,” he quickly adds, putting his hands up as if in defense.

  
  


Firstly, you say, “Good. Don’t mention the name Strider to anybody but me, Hal, and Caliborn.”

  
  


“Right, yea, of course, on the run and shit,” he says much too quickly to be a comfortable thing for him. “But I– Bro, _where_ did you get Lalonde as like, a name? Did you just pick it out of a hat, or was it– was it your mom’s name?” He quiets down again. “My mom’s?”

  
  


You shake your head. “No. It was my friend’s. I haven’t talked to them in years, but back when I first moved out here, before even you came along, I asked them for a favor. Asked if I could borrow their last name, for safety. They said yes. I passed it on to you.”

  
  


Dave stares at you for a long moment before sagging back against your chest, letting out a relieved giggle. “Wow. Okay. Shit. Man I was up there, sweatin’ bullets, thinkin’ like I had some long lost sister fallin’ into my lap like in those posts where people reconnect with their twin separated at birth or somethin’. Ran down here like ‘please say psyche.’”

  
  


“Hey, don’t knock it yet,” you warn him, “your mom could’ve had some other kids already out. Maybe she made some more. You’d never know, li’l dude.”

  
  


Dave groans out a _“groooooss”_ and complains about you giving him existential crises. He tries to elbow you, but you easily deflect him until he gives up and flops over onto your lap. There’s nothing playing on the TV, so it results in a quiet moment where you both simply exist together.

  
  


Dave breaks it with the equivalent of a sledgehammer when he goes, “So will you combust if I ask to see my online friends in real life?”

  
  


Your eyes snap open where they had fallen closed in your tepid relaxation. “Why ever would I do such a thing as ‘combust.’”

  
  


You cringe at yourself as soon as you say that – you sound way too much like Hal. Jesus Christ, you feel like you need to go swish with mouth wash.

  
  


“No, it’s okay. I kinda knew you wouldn’t be down for it.” Dave wriggles in your lap like he’s going to get up.

  
  


Selfishly, you trap him there with your arms, accidentally dragging your pile of unfinished black fabric with you. Dave sputters, swatting it all away from his face.

  
  


“It’s not that I wouldn’t be down for it,” you defend, “it’s just that I need some time to think it over. Did you want to visit them, or are they coming here? How many? When? For how long? Are their guardians traveling with them? Anybody allergic to anything? Stuff like that.”

  
  


Dave shrugs to most of the questions you ask. “I don’t have any specifics? Like– oh but John’s allergic to peanuts– like, we just know we want to see each other. Like it’s time to do it. We don’t wanna wait any longer.”

  
  


You consider the assured expression on his face, so serious is he, and lean back. Your arms retreat, and Dave slowly sits up like he expects you to hold him down again.

  
  


“Okay,” you say. “You said they’re Karkat’s friends, too?” Dave nods. “Might as well start talking about bringing them here, then.”

  
  


Dave leaps from the couch, looking like he’s ready to sprint for his life.

  
  


You stop him with a, “Hey.”

  
  


He turns around primly on his heel, biting his lip and looking like his mind is already elsewhere.

  
  


“You know that we’re brothers no matter what, right? Even if we have different ladies that popped us out then left… Hal and I, we’re your family.”

  
  


Dave goes, _“Fuck_ yea,” and then spins back around. He rockets up to his room, undoubtedly to get on his computer and tell his friends the tentative news.

  
  


Well. That happened.

  
  


Once he abandons you to the quiet evening of the empty living room, you feel it creeping in. The doubt. The anxiety. The pang of something deep and hungry in your chest that’s always there, never willing to leave you for long.

  
  


You try to shove it aside, but it’s close to suffocating. It wants to be heard, to be acknowledged.

  
  


Later, you kiss Dave goodnight. Remind him that it’s Kankri’s tomorrow. But you feel like you aren’t truly there when you do these things. The you that matters is stuck somewhere in the back of your mind, battling off a small army of ‘but what if...’s and ‘I have to do this for Dave...’s.

  
  


But just because you tell yourself that you have to do something doesn’t mean that you are capable of committing yourself to that something, no matter how important it is.

  
  


Sometimes, you are rationally scared of the unknown. Of the future. It’s your most human quality, you think.

  
  


You try to sleep to escape it. Surely the anxiety will not get any worse if you’re unconscious, lost to that haze that does not allow even a single dream, much less nightmare, through to you? But you find yourself awake for hours, staring at different corners of your room, consumed by the slow crawl of time and its immeasurable uncertainties.

  
  


Eventually, Cal comes to you. You almost entirely forget that you could’ve called to him before now, but to be fair, you’re a little busy aimlessly gazing out the window while having one of the longest anxiety attacks you think you’ve ever suffered through, and you used to have to wait in the bathroom for nearly an hour for Dad to finally give in and come catch the damn spider in the corner of the shower with a cup and a postcard.

  
  


“I LIKED TO THINK YOU HAD MORE FAITH IN ME.” Cal sits on your bed instead of appearing across the room. You don’t get up. “TO NOT HARM THE CHILDREN. WHO FLOCK HERE. LIKE LOST DUCKLINGS.”

  
  


“S’not that,” you mumble into your pillow, grappling with the thing, fingers in your mouth like a fucking child, your eyes open and nearly unblinking. “The parents that’ll come with them, I’m worried about.”

  
  


Cal tries to put a hand on your ankle underneath the thin summer sheets, but you involuntarily flinch away with a retarded whine coming out of you without your consent. You have barely the presence of mind to flush hot with shame.

  
  


He doesn’t reach for you again. You can’t tell if it’s because of respect for your space and comfort or if it’s because he doesn’t know what to do with you.

  
  


“WHAT CAN I DO. FOR YOU?”

  
  


“No.” You shift until you’re halfway sitting up, halfway still curled down, so that you can have the uncomfortable privilege of looking askew at him. “This is. I deserve this.”

  
  


“DESERVE IT?” He disappears with a blink, then reappears sitting closer on the bed to you. It’s warmer. “WHAT DO YOU. DESERVE?”

  
  


You go, “Ugh.”

  
  


Cal makes his terrible laugh, the one that doesn’t tickle your inner ear anymore, but does do something funny to your cavernous chest that you try not to read into.

  
  


“YOU NEED ONLY ASK.”

  
  


“Do I?” You sit up fully. “Do I need only ask, Caliborn?”

  
  


“A LIGHT STROLL.” He holds out his hand. The one that looks so deceptively like a human’s that you can imagine grabbing it. Holding it. You can imagine it as much as you want. “YOU WON’T FEEL A THING.”

  
  


You can imagine holding it right now, actually.

  
  


Without giving yourself an extended amount of time to think, to over-think, you reach out and grasp his hand with much more ferocity than he had been expecting, going by the slight surprise decorating his face right before he seems to drag you straight through a black hole shaped to the head of a pin.

  
  


_Well,_ you think with a startling amount of clarity compared to a few moments ago, _he was telling the truth. __I__ don’t feel a thing._

  
  


Crazy, how familiar that concept is. Of not feeling anything at all. You get deja vu in between nothingness and somethingness, which comes in the form of suddenly being able to see and hear again.

  
  


He – Caliborn – is making you – your body – walk around. In an absolutely rapturous ten minutes, you watch him use your flesh vessel to traverse all the way from your bed to the hallway. He has particular trouble fitting your palm around the door knob, but eventually gets the hang of it.

  
  


You are incapable of understanding the true depths of these actions, but you can read into how slowly they seem to come to you – your body, that is – as if the pilot has not been accustomed to doing his job for a century or more.

  
  


It’s like taking a backseat in your own mind, a viewing screen in front of you serving as your eyes. Or perhaps like a windshield, with you kipping in the back while someone else drives, but you can still sit up and take a look at where you’re being taken.

  
  


You decide that you can make suggestions, one metaphorical hand on Cal’s metaphorical shoulder, but you doubt you’re capable of grabbing the wheel, much less reaching the gas pedals. That would result in a default state being achieved, you reckon, wherein you’d simply be alone and in sole control of your body and mind again. Caliborn will have to park the car and get out for that to happen.

  
  


To test this, you focus your desire to check on Dave. Metaphorically, you tap Caliborn’s shoulder and point out the windshield with a finger you do not, technically, have.

  
  


Cal pauses in walking your body down the stairs. Slowly, he backs you up, each footstep careful and delicate like he’s trying not to hurt you, or is concentrating very hard.

  
  


He walks you to Dave’s room. At a snail-like pace, he opens the door.

  
  


The moon shines down perfectly upon Dave, who looks utterly pale and wan under the lighting as he lays in bed. His mouth is parted slightly, not yet drooling and snoring like he tends to devolve into, his face lax. It makes him look impossibly younger. Your heart clenches.

  
  


You unwittingly assault the both of you with your deeply selfish need to go over there, wake Dave up, and confess everything. _Everything._ Including how much you cherish and love him exactly as he is, no matter what, he’ll_ always have a home with you, so please don’t leave with what I’m about to tell you, Dave, please don’t leave –_

  
  


In something like a flinch, Caliborn uses your hand to shut the door perhaps a hair too loud.

  
  


You, metaphorical you, lays down in the metaphorical backseat, and stops trying to backseat drive this disaster stroll.

  
  


It’s fine, though, considering Cal can’t seem to make it past the second floor landing. You notice this once things start to go dark and fuzzy, like it’s raining on your metaphorical windshield and nobody’s thought to install wipers or headlights because they haven’t been invented for this kind of ride yet.

  
  


Perhaps next time.

  
  


You make the desire known about how you prefer to be at least in your room when it all goes to shit, thanks very much. With what little vision you have left, you can see your own feet shuffle artlessly through your bedroom doorway.

  
  


Everything shuts off.

  
  


Instantaneously, you ‘wake up’ on the floor of your bedroom, a mere foot or so in front of your bed. Your limbs are all scattered about limply like a doll dropped, but nothing hurts except maybe your knees, which is nothing new.

  
  


As you thought: you are alone. Caliborn is gone, down to the very temperature of the air. Not for the first time, you wonder where he goes.

  
  


Standing up is deceptively easy. Again, your brain is convinced that you should be injured, and that you need to take it slow, but you ignore those signals long enough for it to get a hint.

  
  


You are calm. You attribute that somewhat to checking on Dave and not entirely on Caliborn getting to take your body for a quick spin.

  
  


You look at the clock. Exactly an hour on the dot has passed. You suppose your perception of time while trapped in the backseat was not entirely accurate.

  
  


As you slide in between the sheets of your bed and lay down, you snort at the image in your head of Caliborn incredibly slowly boogieing around a room because he can’t make himself go any faster without rupturing the space-time continuum or something.

* * *

For Karkat’s thirteenth birthday, June 12th of 2028, you are once again at Kankri’s apartment complex’s pool.

  
  


The difference this time is that there’s several members missing – Terezi and Kanaya, namely – and several added – Sollux and Mituna.

  
  


Captor Papa is. Around.

  
  


You try not to look for him.

  
  


Supposedly, he’s unknowingly taken Kanaya’s spot at the very end of the pool on the farthest lounge chair, but there’s a vaguely human-shaped lump there that hasn’t moved in a long time, so you can’t be certain that he isn’t in actuality creeping around unseen after fashioning a decoy body.

  
  


It leaves you sweatier than a mild early summer day should, but with Sollux and Kankri blocking you in at both sides in their own lounge chairs, you’re going to have to think yourself as safe as you can get, lest you break out into hives at the mere thought of a tall, disapproving man staring at your back.

  
  


When you tried to ask the kids where Terezi was, they simply said, “Vriska,” and did not extrapolate. You think you get the picture, though.

  
  


Sollux tells his older brother, “No, I don’t want to swim,” for the tenth time today. Mituna, like the previous nine times, shrugs at you like you’re going to agree with him, then kick-flips into the pool.

  
  


Dave and Karkat excitedly ride the waves Mituna gives off, trying to dunk each other under.

  
  


To your right, Sollux, smeared in ten layers of sunscreen and looking paler than sin itself, listens to a podcast with one earphone in. To your left, Kankri works on a tablet, occasionally looking up to check on the kids, check on you, then check on the food to make sure nothing has wandered up to steal any. The raccoons are particularly aggressive in this town.

  
  


You sit in the middle, partially in the shade of the three-story apartment building. You sip at your cold orange soda, wishing you had a reason to sit with your legs in the pool. You aren’t confident in your ability to swim, but you’d like to at least try.

  
  


The eleventh time Mituna gets out of the pool and wanders over, you fully expect him to ask his brother the same question he’s been asking all day about wanting to swim. Instead, he comes up next to your chair and crouches down so that he’s at your height.

  
  


“Hi Dirk,” he says.

  
  


“Hi,” you say.

  
  


“Do you, do you wanna sswim?” He asks you excitedly, tongue poking through the gap of his teeth as he smiles. With his soaked hair all stringy and askew, you can see his dark brown eyes, which is not a common sight. He looks at you like you’re the only person he’s paying attention to in this very moment. It’s somewhat unnerving, but in a strangely nice way.

  
  


“Maybe,” you concede. You don’t know how to explain your hesitance with swimming in general and also with giving up the pretense of being ‘the adult’ who doesn’t swim with the kids for some unspoken social reason you have yet to suss out.

  
  


“Okay,” Mituna says, standing up.

  
  


You expect him to leap back into the pool like he has all the times he’s asked Sollux to swim, or to turn around and ask Sollux for an eleventh time. You look away to distractedly witness Dave getting splashed in the face by Karkat’s furiously pinwheeling arms.

  
  


You are not prepared for the feeling of arms to quickly burrow their way under you, lifting you into the air.

  
  


A swooping sensation hits your stomach as you go boneless with shock. A rushing sound fills your ears and unbalances you, making you unsure which way is up.

  
  


It all happens so fast. You always thought you’d be prepared for anything, but apparently, being randomly tossed into a pool by the guy who taught you how to skateboard is not one of them.

  
  


You have met your match, you declare with detachment as you go ass over teakettle multiple times in what you’re sure is a spectacular flip.

  
  


The sky is very blue.

  
  


You hit the water like so many bricks and you sink like just as many idiots tied together at the ankles.

  
  


You must go down a lot faster and harder than you assumed possible for being in water because when your back unexpectedly hits the bottom of the pool, it positively knocks the air out of you. In reflex, you try to suck more in, only there is nothing for you to breathe but water.

  
  


With a horrible amount of helpless clarity, you think with much drama, _oh, I’m drowning,_ and then find yourself unable to do much about it, because the only other body of water you’ve been in was a tub, and you’d stopped taking baths once you got old enough to realize a shower was much more efficient.

  
  


You try to argue with yourself about your status as Currently Drowning, thinking that surely this cannot be happening. Surely you aren’t going to die from _drowning. _

  
  


That’s so lame.

  
  


You wonder if Dave will hate you for leaving him so early.

  
  


Something latches around your middle, making you realize that you both closed your eyes at some point and that also you’re flailing around without control like a noob who’s never drowned before.

  
  


There’s a dark shape in front of you that obscures your vision and looks at odds with the clear blue of the pool. It yanks you upwards, causing pain in your spine and making you flail even more because you don’t think your brain is quite working right now, but if it was, it’d definitely get with the program and help you save yourself.

  
  


Coming out of the water is abrupt and violent, gravity weighing so much more than you remember it. You cough and choke faster than you can keep up with, your body all cold and limp as someone carries you out of the pool and lays you down absurdly gently on a nearby towel, which you both immediately soak.

  
  


You squint upwards, someone’s head coming to block the sun trying to blind you, and you’re like,_ oh fuck, Captor Papa is trying to give me CPR._

  
  


Nope.

  
  


You hurriedly roll to the side and puke up pool water all on your own, no extra lips or lungs required. You feel more than see your savior lean back, and you sag in relief. Mostly because you can breathe, but also because you don’t have to get the kiss of life from a veritable puckered asshole of a man.

  
  


“Dad! _Dad!”_ Sollux’s worried voice makes him sound younger, and also much less unaffected than he normally does. “Is he okay? I can’t, I can’t _see,_ you have to tell me if he’s okay –”

  
  


“He’s fine, Sol,” Sollux’s dad says. “But he needs space to recover.”

  
  


From the corners of your blurry eyes, you can see people crowd around you like you’re something strange that’s washed up to sea and not a person rapidly coming to grips with mortality before quickly putting it aside in favor of attempting to strike a more dignified position.

  
  


As soon as you try to sit up, though, Captor Papa puts a hand to your chest and firmly puts you back on the ground.

  
  


“Don’t push yourself,” he tells you. It feels like a reprimand. You squeeze your eyes shut, his hand not leaving you until you stop stuttering your breath like you’re about to cry. That takes a stretch.

  
  


God dammit, this sucks.

  
  


“Hey Bro.”

  
  


You open your eyes right quick.

  
  


Dave gives you a sad little smile as he leans over you. His dark t-shirt is draping on him like a pillowcase, making you realize that it must be something of Karkat’s that he’s borrowed to swim in. Karkat himself is but a pouf of curly dark hair behind Dave, someone you can’t see because you aren’t allowed to sit up yet.

  
  


“You doin’ okay? I’m not gonna lie – that was pretty scary.”

  
  


You struggle to say, “Peachy,” your throat feeling like you swallowed sand. Or like you panicked and breathed chemical-laden water for who knows how long before someone fished you out.

  
  


“Ssorry, Dirk, sorry,” says Mituna from somewhere you can’t see, “I thought you could swim. Thought it’d be, be fun.”

  
  


“Why the fuck would you assume something like that!?” Dave snaps. “Who the hell just grabs somebody and throws them into ten foot deep water, anyways? What’s the matter with you!?”

  
  


“Dave, you know I like you. But do _not_ yell at my brother like that. He has impulsivity issues, he literally cannot help it. It sucks we didn’t stop him in time, but that’s all we can do.”

  
  


“Yea well maybe he can help not drowning _my _fuckin’ brother.”

  
  


Sollux must lunge or something, because you blink and see Mituna holding him back. Dave is leaning away, too, looking startled but stalwart in his convictions.

  
  


Karkat looks like he’s about to go feral and start pitching rocks at people, which, as you know intimately, can and will happen. Especially if Dave is involved. One of his hands is practically clawed around Dave’s shoulder, glaring at Sollux as if they aren’t best friends.

  
  


Thankfully, considering you’re about as functional as a cooling sushi in a net on a fishing boat right now, Kankri claps his hands loudly a few times, dispelling the tense atmosphere.

  
  


“Oh-_kay!”_ He announces, “I think that’s enough pool time for today.”

  
  


People start talking and moving. One or more of them try to move you, but you suddenly feel so nauseous and weak that you can only consider the option of waving them away. They go.

  
  


Fuck being dignified – you almost died. Like, you literally almost died. And there’s definitely far fewer ways to flirt your way out of danger with water than there are with a ghost.

  
  


Holy _shit._

  
  


You allow things to be a blur. You’re left to lie there while Kankri directs people around with machine-like efficiency. You think you hear him ask Captor Papa to help him carry the leftover food and fold-out table back up to the apartment, but it’s all lost to you until someone pats you on the shoulder.

  
  


It’s Captor Papa, who stands over you with his trademark blank expression, and Kankri, who’s looking at you like you’re already dead or something.

  
  


“Hey,” you say, just to make sure Kankri knows that you are not, actually, dead. Only pitiful and wishing you were.

  
  


“Hey,” Kankri says in what he must think is a soothing tone, but instead makes you feel like he’s about to tell you that he’s sorry, but he’s going to have to roll you back into the pool. “Don’t worry about anything, Dirk, we’ll take care of it. Just relax – we’re going up to the apartment, and you can have my bed until you feel better.”

  
  


You don’t have much time to ask ‘what the fuck does that mean’ before you’re forced to figure it out. Much like his oldest son, Captor Papa unceremoniously hefts you into his arms, then marches you up two flights of stairs.

  
  


Bereft of all common sense, because that’s what almost dying does to a person, you mouth ‘oh my god’ over his shoulder to Kankri, who covers his face in an attempt not to laugh.

  
  


Like a sack of potatoes, you are quietly ferried from front door to hallway to Kankri’s bed, where a series of towels are laid down like some kind of fucked up prom night. You belatedly remember that you’re still damp even after however long you chilled next to the pool.

  
  


Everything’s all weird and quiet, like people are avoiding speaking too loud. Kankri turns the fan on low and opens his window, forcing you to become aware of how strangely cold and clammy you feel, even though you know that Kankri’s apartment is unreasonably warm in the summer due to poor ventilation and AC.

  
  


Captor Papa leaves as quickly as he came. Despite being your savior, you aren’t sad to see him go.

  
  


You blink, and Kankri is suddenly there. He’s got that horribly concerned expression on again, making you want to childishly close your eyes to not have to see it anymore.

  
  


“How do you feel?” He asks while fussing with something you aren’t willing to strain yourself to peek at.

  
  


“I feel. Like.” You breathe as deeply as possible, which isn’t very. “Like I just drank straight up chlorine, then puked it all.”

  
  


Kankri looks like he doesn’t know what, exactly, to say to that. He pats your arm. “I’ll go get you some tea with honey in it.”

  
  


As soon as he leaves, like a revolving door, Mituna comes sidling in. He keeps peering side to side like someone’s going to come stop him, but Kankri’s apartment is only so big, so he was definitely seen by multiple people who all declined to detain him. He must not be in as serious trouble as he’s thinking.

  
  


You go, “Hi Mituna.”

  
  


He jumps about a foot in the air.

  
  


“Oh wow, you’re alive!” Mituna gives up all pretenses of stealth and comes plodding over, dropping to his knees next to the bed like he isn’t almost thirty. “Hey.”

  
  


“Hey.”

  
  


“Sorry for almosst, uh, killing you.” Mituna plops his chin onto your chest and gives you the most grievous puppy-dog eyes you think you’ve ever had pointed your way.

  
  


“It’s okay,” you sniff, which feels like snorting cinnamon. “If I had to experience drowning, I’d’ve preferred it to be in a controlled setting anyways. Now I can check it off my bucket list. Next is decapitation.”

  
  


Mituna giggles and mutters, “_Dirk_apitation.”

  
  


“That’s hilarious.” You are being entirely truthful. You want that on a fucking t-shirt.

  
  


His dad calls his name through the house, sounding stern as hell. His head perks up like a dog’s, then fwips back towards you like a meerkat’s.

  
  


“Smoochy-smoochy.” He dives towards you with his lips puckered.

  
  


You go, “Ah, fuck,” and roll over in an attempt to dodge, but he gets you on the temple anyways.

  
  


You cringe. He runs off down the hallway giggling, exposing himself as not actually being an idiot but a mastermind.

  
  


For a while, you can only lay there. Tea magically appears on the table beside you, and when you drink it, it disappears. The towels slowly become damper than you are, and you eventually struggle through lifting yourself up and peeling them off the bed before you plop back down like a pendulum.

  
  


All you did was suck some water into your lungs and cease breathing for a few minutes. Does it really warrant all this tired ‘grandma got run over by a summer reindeer’ bullshit? In your opinion: No. It does not.

  
  


Sleep hits you hard once you fully submerge yourself under the covers. They smell like somebody else’s detergent. A bird of some sort visits the window once or twice, but never makes any bird-like noises before it flaps away. You can hear Dave, Karkat, and Kankri’s voices elsewhere in the apartment. You groggily conclude that the Captor’s must have left.

  
  


You think Dave tries to visit you, but you’re only half awake. You tell him that you love him. He wants you to drink some water. You say fuck water, you’re never getting back together with water again. You tell Dave that you love him for a second time. Dave is gone between one blink and the next.

  
  


That might have just been a dream. You’re sort of hoping that it was, anyway.

  
  


You drift in and out, coming to most coherently sometime after the sun has gone down. Soft yellow light from the kitchen trails all the way down into the half-open door of Kankri’s bedroom.

  
  


You still feel like roadkill, but you’re roadkill that has to piss like a racehorse.

  
  


Getting up at anything close to a normal pace leads to regret – you must have seized or hit yourself more than you were aware, because your whole body aches. Especially your head and back. That’s not even mentioning the sore throat.

  
  


After clumsily hitting the bathroom, you shuffle morosely down the hallway, squinting at the brightness of the artificial lighting. You are rewarded with Dave and Karkat taking turns jumping on the couch.

  
  


Oh, youth. You wonder if they’ll ever grow out of doing dumb shit liable to get one or the other hurt.

  
  


Kankri suddenly comes swooping out of the kitchen, a smirk on his face that spells trouble. Before Dave can warn his friend, Kankri snatches Karkat out of the air, causing him to scream.

  
  


“Wh_oof!”_ Kankri sets a shell-shocked Karkat down on the floor with a great exhalation of air, patting Karkat’s stomach. “Couple more years and I won’t be able to do that any– Dirk! You’re up.”

  
  


Belatedly, Dave creeps down from the couch as well, looking at you like he knows he’s in trouble but that he’s also willing to argue you into exhaustion over whether not that trouble is deserved.

  
  


“It’s debatable.” You act like you’re not practically swooning against the wall. “’Time is it?”

  
  


“Just after nine.” Kankri comes to stand next to you, hands hovering over different parts of your body like he’s magically scanning you, or maybe like he doesn’t know if he should be bodily carrying you back to bed. “How do you feel? Do you need some ibuprofen? I’ll confess – I’ve really never dealt with anyone who’s nearly drowned before, so I’m not sure what to do. Would you like to go to the emergency room?”

  
  


“Emergency room?” Dave ekes the words out like they’re a plague. He looks to you in barely concealed fear, either at the prospect of you needing to go or at the idea of an emergency room in general. You’re afraid to know which.

  
  


“I’m fine,” you say. “But I could use somethin’ for this headache, yea.”

  
  


Kankri herds you back to his bed. Despite sleeping on and off for hours, you can definitely go for some more time being horizontal and unconscious.

  
  


You draw the line at Kankri trying to tuck you in, though, which he tries to do until you make a cross symbol with your fingers to ward him off. He doesn’t find it as funny as you do.

  
  


You’re stuck waiting a while for those pills because it sounds like Kankri has decided to go through the arduous task of sending the boys to bed. Karkat complains the loudest, claiming that since he’s officially a teenager, he shouldn’t have a bed time.

  
  


Kankri strikes him down with the logic of since _Dave_ isn’t a teenager yet, and _he_ still has a bed time, then that means Dave will be alone in Karkat’s room. Does Karkat want Dave alone in his room just so that he can stay up for a little longer?

  
  


Karkat quickly changes his tune, and the boys are off to the bathroom to brush their teeth.

  
  


Kankri sighs deeply as he enters his bedroom, setting a glass of water and a small bottle of off-brand pills on the nightstand. You lie there and try to act like you’re not watching everything he does, except you totally are. It’d be real convenient if you fell asleep again, but for right now, you’re wide awake.

  
  


He starts shucking off clothes like you sleep in each other’s bed all the time or something, and you reflexively look away until he’s thankfully dressed in PJs.

  
  


Muffled through the walls, you hear Dave yell, “Let me in the muthafuckin’ bed, Vantas!”

  
  


“We don’t both fit anymore, Lalonde! Fuck off and sleep on the floor!!”

  
  


In a tone of voice that borders on diabolical, Dave drawls, “Oh, we’ll fit.”

  
  


There is the indistinct sound of a bed potentially collapsing from two people leaping on top of it at once.

  
  


Kankri pauses in throwing his day clothes into a laundry hamper, eyeing Karkat’s doorway. _“Kiiiiiiiiiids._ What was that?”

  
  


Dave and Karkat both call back a highly suspicious, “Nothing!” But Dave ruins it by adding, “We’ll fix it!”

  
  


“SHHH, SHUT UP, DON’T SAY THAT –” Violent shuffling noises.

  
  


Kankri smiles beatifically at you. “One moment.” He disappears into Karkat’s room.

  
  


There’s a few knocks and bangs before Kankri slips back out, closing the door behind himself.

  
  


“They shifted the boxspring and mattress off the wooden slats,” he tells you with a composed amount of amusement. “Nothing I couldn’t fix in a few seconds.” He throws his half of the bed’s sheets back and picks up his tablet. “I set up a cot on the floor for Dave, but I doubt they’ll use it.”

  
  


You nod in understanding. You’ve seen the two of them squeeze together in some unlikely places. A twin-sized bed will be one of the least weird, although you’ll admit that they have an easier time fitting together on Dave’s full-sized bed at home.

  
  


As if he’s on the same wavelength, Kankri coos at something on his tablet before turning it your way. “Just look at how little he used to be. He’s going to need a new bed soon, he’s just gotten too big.”

  
  


It’s a picture of Karkat on his first birthday. You can tell because he’s grinning down at a tiny cake shaped like Elmo’s face with a big number one sticking out in the form of a candle. Standing in the background is a man, or more like a teenaged boy, who seems just as happy as the baby is.

  
  


“Who’s that?” You point at the guy with the purple-streaked hair.

  
  


Kankri tuts, taking the tablet away. “Oh, that’s just Cronus. He looks happy here, but not long after was when he walked out.” He puts his tablet down and hands you the glass of water before twisting open the pills. “He was a total looker back then, but I bet he’s got a hanging beer gut by now.”

  
  


That almost makes you choke on your water. Kankri says he’s sorry, but he also laughs at you a little bit, so you know the truth.

  
  


“Dirk.” You finish swallowing your pill and look up at Kankri, who takes your glass away. “Now, don’t repeat what I’m about to say, but you can go one night without brushing your teeth. You’ve had a rough day. It won’t kill you.”

  
  


Well, you hadn’t been all that concerned in the first place, but it seems the Almighty Kankri Vantas has given you permission. So mote it be.

  
  


You snort. “No, but drowning will.”

  
  


Kankri gives you an utterly banal look before he unceremoniously slides into bed with you. It’s not a tight squeeze, considering he has a queen, but it reminds you vaguely of the only other time you’ve shared a bed with him. It involved a lot of horrible midnight confessions and drunken shenanigans that weren’t fun at all.

  
  


This time, he’s sober, and seems to be concentrating on his tablet. Possibly finishing whatever work you interrupted today by almost drowning.

  
  


It’s a little awkward. Not hopelessly so, but enough that it takes you until Kankri yawns and turns off his tablet, finally laying down himself, before you fully relax.

  
  


You’re curled up on your side and almost entirely under the covers. You’re fighting to stay warm, but you suspect that having another body putting off heat will set you right sometime before morning.

  
  


Kankri lays down on his back. One flat pillow under his head. He folds his hands onto his chest, then he closes his eyes.

  
  


You think about how that’s kinda weird, and then in what feels like no time at all, you’re blinking awake to the sun.

  
  


It’s morning. Possibly late morning. It’s not like any of you have school or a job to get to, but you’re so used to waking up at exactly sunrise that it’s startling.

  
  


Kankri is still on his back. His head is turned slightly away from you, and his hands have wandered elsewhere on top of the sheets, but otherwise it looks as if he hasn’t moved at all.

  
  


You’re simultaneously appalled and impressed.

  
  


Since his bedroom looks out into a small patch of woods and not a stairwell or parking lot, Kankri left his window open all night. You can hear the birds and the faintest sound of traffic.

  
  


You turn onto your other side.

  
  


Perched in the thin windowsill is a crow.

  
  


Your heart stops in your chest when it looks at you, dark eyes backed by the faintest of red glows, before it takes off. Its wing beats are loud. You’d expected it to caw at you.

  
  


Kankri jerks awake, rattling the bed. You unfreeze and roll back over, deciding that it’s best to act like that never happened since you were the only witness and the crows can’t tell on you.

  
  


“Muh,” greets Kankri in a most eloquent of ways, speech slurred and eyes still drooping. “Somethin’ tells me the kids are doin’ stuff they shouldn’t.”

  
  


You blink at him. “Only one way to find out.”

  
  


Feeling much better than you did last night, you follow a mussed Kankri down the hall, past Karkat’s empty bedroom, and to the kitchen.

  
  


Dave is all but standing on the counter, apparently trying to reach the stash of candy hidden in one of the highest cabinets. Karkat is hunched over the toaster, hands hovering above the heat like he’s waiting to catch whatever pops out with his bare hands.

  
  


You can’t tell if this scene is stupid or hardcore. From Kankri’s beleaguered expression, it’s stupid.

  
  


Four waffles pop out of the toaster. They give Karkat a heated high-five.

  
  


It devolves to hell and back when the sound scares Dave, who nearly falls to the floor until you speed over and catch him.

  
  


The kids are banned from the kitchen after that. Kankri makes everybody egg whites with chopped vegetables and cups of fruit, supposedly the ‘perfect breakfast’ based on the diet he’s set for Karkat.

  
  


That doesn’t stop him from letting you eat two of the four waffles, though.

* * *

As soon as you had gotten back from the slightly disastrous birthday-_cum_-sleepover, Caliborn practically wrung the answers of your unannounced absence from your neck. Dave totally catted on you, telling the poltergeist everything that went down.

  
  


Ever since, Caliborn’s been hovering more often. Sometimes literally, other times figuratively in the way he drapes an arm over your shoulders and stands there, observing whatever you’re doing. Strange moments of silence and closeness that have you thinking bad thoughts.

  
  


You want to get snappy, tell him that you’re not about to drown on dry land, but it turns out the fight tends to drain from you when you’ve got somebody seemingly devoted to rubbing the tension out of your shoulders at random hours of the day.

  
  


You could be doing something as mundane and labor un-intensive as pinning up wet laundry and you’ll still feel him working his hands up your lower back as if you’re putting strain there.

  
  


“What’re you doin.” You lean blindly into him, practically being enveloped in supernatural warmth that’s somehow at odds with the waning summer heat, as if you aren’t attempting to stage an intervention. “Huh? What’re you up to, _verde.”_

  
  


He burns your hip low for that one, but it barely registers on your pain scale, so all you do is jerk your right leg in reflex. You get a little too relaxed, and he has to tilt you back onto your feet before long because you were sliding down. Awkward.

  
  


Worse than anything, though, is those times you can feel that crow following you around town. You’ll be at the grocery, or the post office, or coming out of the mall with some new school supplies for Dave, and you’ll feel those eyes on you. Only sometimes can you spot it flying away.

  
  


Garfield, Dave used to call it. You wonder if Dave even remembers Garfield the Crow, but you spy that ring chained around his neck every now and again, so you guess he must.

  
  


On the flip side, contrary to that short period where Dave seemed embarrassed to acknowledge its existence, Sprite the Crow Plush has taken up permanent residence in his bed once again.

  
  


Speaking of: you’re on the couch patching the little fellow up, its button eyes having come loose or gone missing for about the fourth time already, when Dave walks past with a bright yellow popsicle stuck in his kisser.

  
  


“Hey,” you call out to him. “Isn’t it almost time for Terezi’s birthday sleepover?”

  
  


You know by now that her birthday isn’t for a few days yet, but you’re trying to give Dave some leeway on whether or not he talks about it.

  
  


Dave shrugs at you, pulling the frozen treat out with a _pop._ His tongue is stained in a myriad of colors, making you realize Cal must’ve been sneaking him ice-cream all day. He’s gonna get a belly ache.

  
  


“Yea, I guess. But I don’t think Terezi really has those anymore.”

  
  


“Oh.” You finish looping Sprite’s right button eye in place and start threading together a tear on its bottom. You consider the merits of getting new fabric and stuffing and trying to replace the old, considering how worn down it is now, but you aren’t sure how Dave will react if you try to do that.

  
  


“Plus she said she got invited to go to the Enchanted Forest park with Vriska for her birthday, sooo...” He shrugs again, acting like he doesn’t care. The popsicle is back in his mouth.

  
  


“Y’all’re still goin’ TOTing though, right?” You want to make sure. Picking your favorite candy out of their pile claiming it’s a ‘random safety check’ is one of the highlights of October for you, and loathe are you to let it die out.

  
  


“Um, yea???” Dave looks at you like you just asked him if the sky is blue.

  
  


Well, that answers that. “What’ll you be this year?”

  
  


He gives you a doofy grin. “A teenager.”

  
  


You toss the stupid pincushion shaped like an orange. He dances away and lets it roll under the kitchen table. “Don’t get too excited or else the acne will come for you faster.”

  
  


Dave, who has yet to suffer the wrath of bad skin, bites a huge chunk out of his popsicle with glee. “Terezi’s gonna wear her dragon kigurumi again. Apparently Vriska wants to come, too, but she refuses to tell anybody what she’ll be, so whatever. Kanaya wants to come, but I think it’s just because Meulin isn’t staying home with her like she usually does, and she doesn’t want to stay home alone with her mom. Karkat keeps saying he won’t go because Kankri says he’s getting too old but I’ll bring an eyepatch or something and sneak him out, I swear I will.”

  
  


“I believe you.” You toss a freshly patched Sprite to him next. He catches it and flops its wings around happily. “So? Costume ideas?”

  
  


“Ummm...” Dave shoves Sprite into the front of his hoodie. It’s white with pale blue lettering on the front naming the Middle-High school’s mascot. “I can always be some kind of animal, I guess. Just slap some ears on and bam! Gimme your candy, old people.”

  
  


You uncomfortably think about that one house with the old woman who always scrutinizes you before handing you a fruit and an orange toothbrush. “So am I getting you cat ears and nothing else?”

  
  


Dave shrugs. His empty popsicle stick is poking out of his mouth while he sucks on it as if there’s still juice trapped inside. “My logic is that if everybody else I’m going with is putting in minimal effort, then I don’t wanna stick out like a sore thumb in a totally cool and creative dressed to the nines costume, ya dig?”

  
  


You harshly exhale air. “I dig.”

  
  


On Halloween evening, you end up with so many kids to ferry into the walkable neighborhoods – Dave, Karkat, Terezi, Vriska, and Kanaya – that you have to ask Kankri to borrow Rosa’s puttering old car.

  
  


Karkat, dressed in a somewhat lazy and unconvincing pirate costume, is near livid when he is informed that he matches Vriska’s elaborate Pirate Queen one.

* * *

“More, we’re blind!”

  
  


Terezi and Sollux wield their twin white canes, cutting through the small crowd by knocking kneecaps whenever possible, constantly hip-and-shoulder checking people out of the way. Terezi occasionally pulls Sollux in some direction that the fully blind boy cannot see, but Terezi can apparently make the vaguest of blobs out of.

  
  


You hear her trademark cackle. Somebody you don’t know goes “ow, what the fuck?”

  
  


It’s Dave’s thirteenth birthday. December third, 2028. It’s your twenty-eighth as well, but like with past years, you hardly celebrate it. Today is all about Dave.

  
  


In a turn of events, Dave requested his birthday be held at the park, abouts the same area as he had his fifth birthday. This time, it’s a full-on party instead of just two kids trailed by their stand-offish guardians.

  
  


You’re unsure what dictates the years Dave wants to take a chill hike alone with you from the years Dave wants to be around people, sometimes a lot of people, but whatever he wants, you’ll do your best to get.

  
  


There were other families in the park when you pulled up with your truckload of party equipment, food and fold-out tables and such. You assumed they were the batshit kind that consider December to be the perfect time to frolic in the glen, but that’s sort of hypocritical of you.

  
  


A lot of them unceremoniously joined in once they realized a party was being set up, and after you’ve gotten used to the extra crowd, you don’t mind much; Kankri went totally ham this year and made a ton of food, a fraction of which you helped buy or prepare, so there’s definitely plenty to go around. You think he must miss those big birthday parties Karkat used to have back when he’d invite every single friend from school like a free-for-all.

  
  


Despite it being the tail-end of Autumn, today is pretty mild. You’ve still got your plaid jacket on because your body refuses to get used to not being somewhere arguably warm year-round, but Dave is running amok in just a long sleeve and his favorite pair of skorts. You argued him down to at least wearing leggings underneath, but he was bratty about it, because apparently he hates the pair of deep blue ones you got him several years ago.

  
  


You’ll be forgiven later today when he opens his present and finds two new pairs in much nicer colors.

  
  


You observe the going-on’s from your position guarding the end of the longest food table. Dave appears to be engaged in a park-wide game of tag, but whenever Vriska chases, he doesn’t seem to be having much fun.

  
  


You think he only invited Vriska because she and Terezi are glued to the hip, and with one, you get the other. Sort of like Dave and Karkat, except call you biased but your kid(s) are way better behaved.

  
  


You watch Vriska clearly push a kid over and then give a great belly laugh about it.

  
  


The only reason Kankri isn’t snatching Vriska away from his brood is because he knows Vriska’s mom, and he did not like what he saw. He seems begrudgingly, pityingly patient and stern in turns with the girl.

  
  


You aren’t so invested as to ask why. But it’s telling enough that you yourself have not seen hide nor hair of her mother despite being in charge of Vriska’s safety and whereabouts several times this year.

  
  


Eventually most of the kids settle down at the picnic tables scattered about. They aren’t exactly rooted in place, so you help pull them closer together so that nobody gets left out.

  
  


You get splinters for your effort. Kankri gives you masking tape to fish them out, and then jogs off to go deter an unknown child from sticking their dirty hands into the punch bowl.

  
  


“Of _course_ I nap during school,” Terezi proclaims, one arm wrapped around Dave’s shoulders, the other twirling her shortened cane dangerously close to Karkat’s head. “What do you think I’m doing when I listen to my audiobooks? Learning? HAH!” She slams her palm down onto the table, nearly choke-holding Dave. “What are they going to do? Tell me to open my eyes? If they do, I just act like I was peacefully listening to my boring textbook, and that they have committed a great act of discrimination against me for having dead, dry eyeballs in need of resting.”

  
  


“Stick it to the system, TZ!” Vriska tries to reach across the table to fist-bump her, but Terezi can’t see it coming, so she gets _bonp_’d in the cheek instead. A smear of blue icing from the cookie Vriska is eating gets left behind. They both laugh.

  
  


Dave pries himself out from under Terezi’s arm only to go around to Karkat’s side and shoo him until he scoots as far towards Terezi as he physically can before Terezi starts swinging her cane in defensive maneuvers.

  
  


You’re not sitting at any of the tables because they’re all full of kids and you’d stick out like a six foot sore thumb, but you’re loitering close enough to Dave’s table of friends to hear it when he starts talking about how you agreed to have his online friends over sometime soon.

  
  


You increasingly feel as if you’re being backed into a corner the longer Dave brags. Technically, you should take it as a compliment – your kid trusts you. Expects you to do the right thing. But instead, you feel the orange soda sloshing around in your gut turn heavy, its sweet taste going sour on your tongue.

  
  


In the back of your head, your mind runs through lines of text, of threats from a brother to come visiting.

  
  


The genuinely pleased, small smile Dave sends you when he catches you looking nearly chases it all away.

  
  


You feel the tip of a sword long since aimed for your neck close in a hair more.

  
  


Nearly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFt3q8Zws3c)   
[[CLICK HERE for smthng interesting]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjbSCEhmjJA)


	12. Your Hair Is Coxcomb Red, Your Eyes Are Viper Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *MIND BREAK, HORROR, BODY HORROR, DISTURBING IMAGERY, VIOLENCE, EXTREME TENDERNESS, intimacy, consensual possession, soul possession/bonding, anxiety attacks, obsessive compulsive thoughts/actions, child endangerment, depression, meltdowns & shutdowns, manipulation, cryptic thoughts dreams and conversations, alcohol, implied witchcraft, friends fighting, siblings fighting, controlling & possessive behavior, dissociation, excessive amounts of crying, inappropriate sexual humor, sexist language (cunt), ableist language (crazy), internalized ableism, fatphobia, kids/teens dieting, themes of consent, (technically past) character death(s), fratricide, grief, off-screen child abuse (of a minor character(s)), references to past sexual relationships, past child abuse, internalized aphobia, self-deprecation, sensory overload, platonic break-ups and make-ups, platonic intimacy, platonic rejection (???), mentions of chronic illness, tense and awkward situations, second-hand embarrassment, detrimental denial and avoidance, fatalism, self-destruction, past Dirk/Jake, IMPLIED unrequited Kankri<>Dirk, implied unrequited Dave/Karkat, one-sided Karkat/Jade, Jade/Dave, Vriska, 24573 words of "fun".

One random Friday a month into the kids’ final semester of Eighth Grade finds Karkat unexpectedly barging in your front door by practically slamming it open.

  
  


In your opinion, it’s understandable how startled you are. You don’t exactly live somewhere that’s easy to simply walk up to like a cowboy sauntering into a saloon.

  
  


Karkat doesn’t look like he’s about to start any rootin’ tootin’ rowdiness, however; he’s got a soggy countenance to him, mostly around the cuffs of his jeans and in the droop of his face. Through the living room window you can spy his dirty bike propped up haphazardly against Dave’s Bench. There’s a slush coating the ground from a freak snow a few days prior – you imagine that it didn’t treat him well on the way over.

  
  


As you’re about to open your mouth to ask him why he’s apparently biked the entire way from Kankri’s to here, Dave comes flying down the stairs. He hits the ground floor before the toilet upstairs is done flushing.

  
  


You squint at them as Dave skirts to a stop like a cartoon race horse.

  
  


You say, “Hey. Was I supposed to pick you up?” Even though what you’d rather say is, ‘I love y’all but I was not informed of this beforehand and that is unacceptable.’

  
  


Karkat gives you a weird look that reeks of unpreparedness. Dave hardly glances at you at all. He snatches Karkat’s arm and starts dragging him towards the staircase, speak-mumbling something that sounds like, “wegottagoworkonamaththing,” but you aren’t entirely positive.

  
  


You’re standing by the fridge, bewildered, as you watch the kids practically trip up the stairs. Karkat keeps shooting you expressions that only cause the suspicion to build, but Dave seems to be taking the opposite route of acting like if he can’t see you, you can’t see him.

  
  


That’s hella suspicious.

  
  


In prep for the finale of a huge multi-page commission, you’ve been spending a lot of time on your computer. Dave, also spending a lot of time on his computer (or, obviously, at school), doesn’t seem to mind as much as he used to. Although now you’re not so sure if he’s resorting to sneaking his friends into his room when he’s under the impression you’ll be distracted.

  
  


Jokes on him, you think as you fish out your phone. Even you emerge from your pit of depravity to gobble snacks every now and again.

  
  


Although you will admit that it was not entirely your decision to do so; you skittishly palm the hand print-shaped fever cupping your right hip, incentive by your ghost after three hours of screen-staring marination that you refused to break.

  
  


While you ring up Kankri, you’re left to ponder whether Caliborn timed it or if it was a coincidence that you came downstairs right as Karkat was coming in.

  
  


Kankri picks up with an expected, “Is Karkat with you?”

  
  


You snort lightly. Dave can be so predictable even when he’s doing something new. “Yup. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that he’s not supposed to be, though.”

  
  


“You’d be correct.” Kankri breathes something out that sounds like a growl.

  
  


Your eyebrows kiss your hairline. “Damn. Should I be snatching him by the scruff, driving him over?”

  
  


“No, no – there’s a bad storm rolling in. I told him I wanted him home before it, but if he’s all the way over there, then it’s too late.” He pauses. His tone changes minutely. “He _said_ he was going to Sollux’s for homework help.”

  
  


You shrug to no audience, then make up for it by forcefully pressing your upper back against the kitchen wall. “Dave asked me to pick him up, so I did. He didn’t warn me Karkat was coming over,” you tell him as a sort of conciliatory pat on the back. “I’m not mad.”

  
  


“But you would’ve liked a bit of clarity between the two of you,” Kankri finishes. “I admit that I’m not exactly frothing at the mouth over here, either, despite the fact that Karkat _promised me_ once upon a time to use his bike responsibly, but doesn’t something about it just… sting?”

  
  


You have nothing concrete to say in response. As if agreeing makes it real, but staying silent gives you a precious few further incidents of denial.

  
  


“Kids’re growin’ up. Nothin’ to do about it but to let them. Can’t stop ‘em. And if you try, well…” You click your tongue in finality.

  
  


“I suppose you’re right.” Kankri makes a noise that either means he’s gnawing at a pen or he’s eating while on the phone, which is unheard of because he thinks eating while talking to someone is an unofficial sin. “I wish they had more time.”

  
  


You lightly thump your head against the wall. “Me, too.”

  
  


As you go about the automatic motions of hanging up, in your mind’s eye you see Dave, small and riding in a bright red wagon, clutching a newly sewn Sprite to his chest, his big round shades oversized for his head.

  
  


In reality, the wagon isn’t all that red anymore and is too small to ride in. Sprite is a coveted, gently handled memory left on a shelf. Dave is much bigger, and keeps his eyes shaded more often.

  
  


Maybe it’s because you haven’t seen him every single day for his entire life, but compared to Dave, Karkat’s about stayed the same. Except for the ‘gotten bigger’ part.

  
  


At that thought, you sharpen your view. You spot the damp trail Karkat’s blazed through your living room. You decide that it’d be bad for you to ignore how wet and cold he looked, sneaking behind shut bedroom doors aside.

  
  


You once again shit all over Kankri’s special diet by making hot chocolate. You put too much chocolate sauce in, so heating them up smells like you’re making brownies. You hope the kids don’t come storming down here thinking there actually _are_ brownies, because you’re sure if there’s any time to be out of brownie mix, it would be today.

  
  


When you carefully ferry the mugs upstairs, you’re mildly taken aback to find that Dave’s door isn’t as tightly shut as you’d pessimistically assumed. It’s generously cracked open.

  
  


Logically, you know that Dave simply forgot to close the door all of the way. This logic does not stop you from wondering what it is he might be wanting you to see. To intervene.

  
  


After all, he never ‘forgets’ to close any door. Just like you don’t.

  
  


You go towards it with intent to gently nudge it open with your foot, perhaps making sure to waggle it about obviously before you do, but you’re stopped by the sight of Karkat and Dave embracing while kneeling on the bed.

  
  


Karkat’s back is to the door, Dave’s shadeless face buried into Karkat’s shoulder as he tries to keep quiet in his crying, his body hitching.

  
  


“It’s like he doesn’t even want to try and understand what it’s like for me.” Karkat speaks on the edge of sobbing. “Like everything’s fucking FINE and that I’m hunky-dory with being his little box of secrets, but I’m NOT!”

  
  


Dave unburies his face enough to free his mouth, his eyes open yet cast down towards the floor, brows pinned tightly together in an expression you regret seeing. “I guess we both have big secrets we’re just supposed to hide and act like nothing’s wrong about it –”

  
  


You can tell when he spots you in the doorway because he practically shoves them apart. Karkat uses his sleeves to shuck tears off his face like he’s flinging bugs to the floor.

  
  


“Sorry,” you say. “I know I probably wasn’t meant to hear. That.”

  
  


The kids both blink owlishly at you.

  
  


It seems you’ve grievously miscalculated.

  
  


You hold up the mugs as a peace offering. “Hot chocolate?”

  
  


Dave looks to Karkat.

  
  


Karkat angles himself away, more carefully scrubbing his face of tears before holding out his hand and making grabby motions.

  
  


Dutifully, you give him the mug, then pass one Dave’s way so that he has no choice but to relieve you lest somebody spills liquid brownie all over his pony sheets.

  
  


After everyone’s taken a calming sip, you clear your throat. “I know I wasn’t meant to hear that. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but know that you can talk about it with me. If you want to. You don’t have to.”

  
  


Karkat peers drolly at you over the rim of his mug, speckles of brown on the corners of his mouth. “I don’t want to.”

  
  


Alright, you definitely could’ve seen that coming. “I won’t tell Kankri about whatever that was.” You consider it for a moment. “Unless you _want _me to tell him something for you.”

  
  


“I can do it on my own!”

  
  


“Dude, chill.” Dave tries to take Karkat’s shoulder, but he jerks away, nearly spilling his drink. “He’s just offering to make it easier for you –”

  
  


“I know what he’s offering!” With forethought, Karkat stretches, haphazardly banishing his drink to the desk. “And I know that I’m perfectly capable of handling my own boo-boo problems without your goddamned uppity one-man army butting in!”

  
  


You get vaguely negative emotions associated with being referred to as a ‘one-man army.’

  
  


“But you’ve been sitting on this shit for years now!” Dave shoves his mug in between his knees, his face a cast of pure frustration. “You keep saying ‘oh, next time I’ll say something’ but then every single ‘next time’ you don’t, and then you get upset which _sucks,_ so no, I _don’t_ think you can handle your own boo-boo problems, Kat! I think that something like this needs a little help, or else you’ll just _never say anything.”_

  
  


Karkat makes that same sigh-snarl his older brother does. “Well then what about _you, _huh!?”

  
  


Dave draws back, his body language shutting down. “What _about_ me.”

  
  


“You’ve been sitting on your own shit for even longer than I have. In fact, it’s been sooo long and gotten sooo stinky that I think you’re pretending to forget that it’s even there! Because you’re too much of a brat and a hypocrite to deal with it!” Karkat jabs a finger in your direction. “Here, I’ll ‘help’ you. Go on, fucking tell him if you’re so confident that it’s so easy with somebody else fucking meddling.”

  
  


Dave looks at you like he has no choice; you yourself never looked away from him in the first place. In his eyes is the stuff of nightmares, the kinds you think you’d get if you were allowed to dream at all.

  
  


In the near distance, thunder rumbles. The unusually early Spring storm Kankri warned you of rolls in.

  
  


The tense moment is broken when Dave shuts his eyes and turns his head away, Karkat’s arm dropping more in defeat than in confidence. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

  
  


“That’s right you apple juice-soaked wet blanket,” mutters Karkat as the darkness of the black clouds overtakes the house. “Not so easy, is it?”

  
  


Dave curls in on himself slowly, like he thinks he won’t survive if he moves too fast, draws too much attention to himself. “It’s not the same,” he mumbles, looking at no one, “and you know it.”

  
  


You forget about Karkat for the moment and move over to Dave’s side, holding him in your arms as soon as you’re close enough. He isn’t crying, but you can feel how stiffly he sits. You hate to consider that it’s your fault, so you do.

  
  


“You don’t have to tell me anything until you’re ready,” you murmur to him. He only winds tighter, nearly pulling away from you like a rotted nail from a wall. “I won’t act like I know what’s going on here, but I think I can take a pretty good guess.”

  
  


Dave’s eyes abruptly snap open. He’s as still and cold as stone. It’s uncomfortable to hold him when he’s like this, what with how it feels like he’ll disappear into dust if you even consider letting go.

  
  


Across the bed, Karkat hugs himself with his arms. “Ugh, of _course _Kankri would tell you about the mom thing. What the fuck did I expect from him? His mouth is looser than the waistband on my fatass pants.”

  
  


Slowly, Dave unwinds. This close, you can smell the sweat he must’ve accumulated from the stress of the situation. You rub your hands up and down his arms and hold him together, in case he can’t do it on his own yet.

  
  


You shrug lackadaisically. “You told Dave.”

  
  


Karkat makes a stinker face and shrugs too, looking away mulishly. “Why _wouldn’t_ I tell Dave.”

  
  


For that, Dave shoots Karkat one of his small, shy smiles. Karkat slumps onto the bed with an unreadable expression, then covers it up by clumsily retrieving his mug and shoving it into his face.

  
  


“Seriously, though.” You pat Dave’s back and give him a quick kiss on the crown of his head, which he turns cherry tomato red at. Hilarious. “I’m here for you, even if it means staying out of the way when you need me to. Or if it means warding off Kankri from banning every fun food from Karkat’s diet.”

  
  


Karkat emits a smug slurping noise as he downs the rest of his hot chocolate.

  
  


After that fiasco, you distract the kids with the mad scramble that comes with you realizing you forgot to bring the laundry in, and need to go save it before the rain comes.

  
  


Some of it is still damp, but once you get it all inside, you give those ones to Caliborn. He presses them between his hands and they’re instantly steam-dried, something that Karkat watches with utter fascination while Dave is off picking a rainy day movie.

  
  


“...Sorry,” you hear Karkat grind out between his teeth from the living room. “I went too far. I shouldn’t have –”

  
  


“No, you were already all messed up about the Rosa thing and I knew it,” butts in Dave, “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not _fine_ fine, but I know how you get like a fuckin’ alligator, grab that shit and roll it to death, I knew I was practically playing by Lake Placid with an outfit made outta beef jerky. It’s okay.”

  
  


“It’s _not okay_ but like, sure, whatever you say. Let’s just watch the movie before I break out into hysterics again about every little thing.”

  
  


“Kat, c’mon, no...”

  
  


They must think you can’t hear them over the sound of the sink running. You wash your hands slowly.

  
  


Once you’ve secured the kids on the couch, you’re free to finally return to your work.

  
  


Unsurprisingly, Cal follows you up to your room, though you only know this from how deep and long your shadow gets. How the heat clings even while the humidity doesn’t, the natural moisture of the air being wicked away by his presence.

  
  


You shut your door firmly. The window is open, letting rain in, so you close it.

  
  


Cal is standing at the other end of the room. He’s leaning back against the door, which does nothing to intimidate nor relax you because it’s fucking ridiculous.

  
  


Neither of you move or speak.

  
  


If it were three, four years ago, you’d think he was readying to pitch a fit about being used like a laundromat, but you know that if he was going to do that he would’ve done it before he turned his hands into irons used not for branding but for household chores.

  
  


You press two fingers to the swirled scar on your right hip. It makes not the skin hurt, but the heart stutter. You press harder until it stings better.

  
  


He doesn’t blink, seeing as he doesn’t need to. But his chest rises ever so slowly, then falls, and something about that makes you feel all lost, all swollen in the ribs. Puts hope where you don’t want it to be.

  
  


The sound of the rain gets increasingly rancorous as it pounds against the roof. Your room is one of the only upstairs areas where it isn’t so loud – Dave’s complained about it once or twice. You wonder why that is.

  
  


You wonder when you grew able to meet Caliborn’s hateful fire gaze without looking away.

  
  


Even in the middle of a fire, one can succumb to feeling cold. It’s all a matter of perspective. Or perhaps mental stability, as it were.

  
  


Your phone, which you’d tossed onto your bed once the laundry rush started, lights up and demands your attention. You go to it like answering a beacon. The only other option is to be alone with whatever intentions Caliborn came up here with, and the less you examine your reaction to that, the better.

  
  


Like some kind of idiot, you were expecting anybody but Hal. When aren’t you expecting anybody but Hal?

  
  


He sends one message then keeps sending another and another before you give up and open the chat program. Might as well get it over with.

  
  


**Hal**

>I think it’s about time I come for a visit.

>Now, I know what you’re going to say.

>Hear me out. I have an irrefutably compelling argument lined up:

>You’re crazy and you need help.

>And since I highly doubt you’re capable of trusting anyone else, I am offering up myself. I can help.

>And I can also send a PlayStation Ultra and a sizable chunk of the released games on it for Dave. Equius accidentally broke it, but I found it easy to piece back together to functionality. There’s hardly a scratch on it.

>Well, you know, hardly anywhere bar internally.

>Kind of like you now that I think about it. If one were to ignore that unsightly slit on your throat.

>But I digress; your choice, except it’s really not.

  
  


“THIS BROTHER OF YOURS IS DISTRACTING.”

  
  


Caliborn’s voice makes you jump a little. You had tunnel vision’d on whatever bullshit Hal was spewing, your hand coming up to brush fingers against your faded neck scar.

  
  


“IF HE WISHES TO BE INCLUDED SO BADLY. YOU OUGHT TO GIVE HIM WHAT HE WANTS. INTRODUCE HIM TO THE REST. OF THE FAMILY.” Cal vanishes behind your back. “THINK OF IT LIKE A LEARNING EXPERIENCE.”

  
  


You don’t like how he says that. Your throat clicks dryly when you try to swallow. “The family, huh.”

  
  


Caliborn reappears and strides away to go gaze out the window with robust melancholy, hands locked behind his back in an astute pose that genuinely weirds you out. You look back down to your phone.

  
  


It takes you a moment of struggle, but like oil being applied to a grinding wheel, it becomes easier the longer you type it out. By the time you hit send, you’re only pacing around the room a little bit.

  
  


**You**

>Fine. Dave’s having a party with all his little online friends. You can come then.

  
  


**Hal**

>Wow.

>How generous.

>Aside from the ‘we have to meet in a public place because I don’t trust you’ vibes I’m getting, which is entirely too insulting considering we literally grew up together and also the magnitude of what I’m willingly sacrificing for you. Again.

>I’m surprised at you. Of all the scenarios that I calculated would occur, you saying ‘fine’ like a cashier asks ‘paper or plastic?’ was not one of them.

>Change of heart?

>Coming clean?

  
  


**You**

>I don’t think cashiers give you the option anymore. I think there might just be plastic.

  
  


**Hal**

>Well then – the way a cashier would ask ‘do you have your own tote bags, you tree-hugging cuck?’

>Fucking picky.

  
  


**You**

>Whatever.

  
  


**Hal**

>When is it?

  
  


**You**

>I don’t know yet. Not anytime this year that’s for fucking sure.

>The dad of the youngest friend is a total hard ass, won’t stop quizzing me about how safe my ‘neighborhood’ is and how many fire exits I have in my house and if I know how to purge every pantry and surface of peanuts.

  
  


**Hal**

>A trial, I’m sure.

  
  


**You**

>Plus his kid is still only eleven. I get it.

>The other guardians I’ve been in contact with acted like they didn’t give a shit, which is just great.

  
  


**Hal**

>You’ve gotten better at the unrewarding art of sarcasm, it seems. Care to explain, bro?

  
  


**You**

>I have too many kids. I don’t want anymore kids, but if kids with shitty parents keep showing up, then I’m going to have to get more kids.

  
  


**Hal**

>I literally do not comprehend what the fuck you’re talking about.

>Please tell me you only have Dave.

>Please say ‘psyche.’

  
  


**You**

>They don’t all fit in the truck anymore, Hal.

>I have a town full of kids.

  
  


**Hal**

>Oh my god things are worse than I could have imagined.

  
  


**You**

>Psyche.

  
  


**Hal**

>I knew you would say it eventually, dickcheese.

>You never could hold onto a ruse for long.

>Tell me about the other kids who are on the chopping block for adoption, according to you.

  
  


**You**

>One kid’s already got the money for a plane ticket, says she’ll be an unaccompanied minor because her grandpa doesn’t travel well anymore.

>Don’t know how I feel about that but I predict that she won’t exactly have anywhere to stay but here. She’s twelve.

>The other kid’s mom apparently read my introduction and ollied the fuck out faster than I could offer to pay for her stay at the Northwest Manor Hotel, so now Dave keeps telling me that ‘Rose will figure something out.’

>I’m inclined to believe it, considering Rose is fifteen.

>But the mom doesn’t want anything to do with me.

  
  


**Hal**

>And what a coincidence that that mother’s last name is Lalonde.

  
  


**You**

>Why am I not surprised that you know that.

  
  


**Hal**

>Oh, Dirk. I said I’d look out for you, didn’t I? Did you think I was bulling myself up for show and ego?

>Don’t be comparing me to Jake, now.

  
  


**You**

>The absolute last person, thing, or concept I’d want to talk about with you is Jake.

  
  


**Hal**

>Understandable.

>Though I think you’re placing him a little high on the list compared to another thing, concept, or… I’m certain you’re capable of filling in the blanks eventually.

>What can I say? I have faith in you.

>You know, like a plague victim had faith in their bird-faced doctor with a beak stuffed full of flowers and a beating stick in one hand.

  
  


There’s a strange lull in place of where, typically, Hal would be drilling into you about this that or the other. Especially since it’s about one of your old friends, not to mention ex-boyfriend. Jake always was a topic of conversation with Hal that you couldn’t’ve possibly been more avoidant of as the years went by.

  
  


Merely recalling all the shit Hal used to say and do to you and your friends, his little jealous picking games where he’d impersonate you online just to stir up trouble then turned around and acted like you’d had seen it coming if only you’d paid more attention, has got you feeling tetchy. You know he only did it because it was his own response to Dad’s disregard for him, you remember how fucking pissed he was as a teenager once Dad forced him to exchange health for voice, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling wronged all over again.

  
  


**Hal**

>Dirk.

  
  


**You**

>Fucking what.

  
  


**Hal**

>You do realize that Rose Lalonde could very well be related to Roxy, right?

>Roxy had a little sister last we heard.

>A half-sister, at least.

>Coincidence unfounded or not, it’s been years since you had contact with them. Even I haven’t poked around them for a long while.

>Partly due to the fact that the last time I did, they friendly fired me in the face with a virus that took ages to neutralize.

  
  


**You**

>Yes. I realize.

>I’m not that far gone.

>Though that would make you happy, wouldn’t it? If I was.

>It’d give you a better excuse

  
  


**Hal**

>You can’t prove anything.

  
  


**You**

>I don’t need to.

>You’ll do it whether I

>

  
  


**Hal**

>Easy, Dirk.

>At the very least you’re one micrometer closer to confessing.

>You have no idea how much weight that would take off of my semi-artificial shoulders.

>I understand that this will be a bitch to get through, and that this will absolutely not be a comforting sentiment to you, but I’m doing everything in my power to ensure that we’ll do it togeth

  
  


The phone goes dark with an electric _hiss._

  
  


You’re so confused that it takes you a moment to realize that it’s hotter than hell. When you drop it and it only falls a short distance to an unfantastical clatter, you come back down to yourself.

  
  


You’re crouching on the floor, sweaty, panting. Your head hurts.

  
  


You don’t know how you got down here.

  
  


“PATIENCE.” Caliborn’s hands float over the knobs of your spine, dusting each one with burning knuckles. Before you get a grip, you groan out loud. Your back was held so tensely that it now aches. **“PATIENCE.”**

  
  


“What the fuck?” You slur, messily falling to the side so that you’re sitting on your thighs. You blink and find your vision slow and jacked up, like camera lenses with petrolatum gel on them. “Why does it feel like…”

  
  


“YOU WERE UNDER GREAT DURESS.” Caliborn’s hands mold around your neck, your jaw, twisting your head this way and that until you feel more loose. You let him, for a lack of better things to do. “I STEPPED IN. I TOOK CARE OF IT.”

  
  


Giving up, you lean back into him. He holds your weight. He’s warm. “One conversation and I’m on the floor. This is officially too pathetic.”

  
  


“I DO NOT CONSIDER IT SO.” He breathes hot air onto the crown of your head, causing something up in your brain to melt like candy left in the city sun. “BUT I KNOW HOW YOU OPERATE. AND I KNOW WHAT **WANTS **ABOUT YOU.”

  
  


You can feel it coming on, rushing upward, like standing at the edge of a cliff where the long drop to the water only gets lower and lower until you might as well be standing on a beach. On this beach, the shore tickles your feet, but won’t come any closer unless you go to it.

  
  


You lick your dry lips and fail to swallow again.

  
  


Caliborn watches you with intent.

  
  


“...Don’t stop now.” Your request is met with the pupils you thought didn’t exist dilating. It sinks stones in your stomach. “You think I got a leg to stand on here, to say ‘no’? I don’t.” Another restless swallow that yields no help. “So don’t stop.”

  
  


When he sinks you down into the water, you don’t fight it. It all happens so much slower than usual, like he’s waiting for you to change your mind and freak out, but you only want it to drown you faster, to take away the weight of the stones in your gut.

  
  


Caliborn walks your body to the door while you lay in the backseat, a metaphorical hand over your metaphorical eyes so that you don’t have to peer our the imagined car’s windows and see your eyes seeing things you cannot handle.

  
  


Your body goes down the stairs. It’s not as complicated as last time. He walks you into the living room. You sit up long enough to spy on the kids – Karkat’s so enraptured with the movie’s climax that he doesn’t notice you, but Dave peers over at least once before you lose sight of him. Caliborn turns your head away.

  
  


He gets a glass of water. He doesn’t break it, even though you can feel him think about it the entire time you’re holding it. You can’t tell if it’s anxiety he feels or something else, something closer to performance.

  
  


While your body traverses back up the stairs, you find yourself sitting up, unable to lay back down.

  
  


You decide that you should look over the railing. Check on the kids one more time.

  
  


You can’t tell if Caliborn obliges or if your sheer amount of desire overcomes whatever Caliborn had been aiming for, but a moment later your body slowly leans over the railing, water glass carefully balanced.

  
  


Dave is staring straight up. His shaded face is an unreadable mask, but you know his tics by now. Even as Caliborn draws your body back into your room, shuts the door, and clumsily deposits the glass at the very edge of your desk, you remember everything about Dave.

  
  


He is not comforted.

* * *

It’s Saturday. You’re at the Farmer’s Market.

  
  


You know how to get here on your own now, so Kankri’s list is actually full of things he wants and isn’t crowded with directions. He still insists on adding a note of encouragement at the bottom, though; today’s is ‘People smile because they know you, and are happy to see you! You should try smiling back. :)’

  
  


You aren’t entirely sold on this one.

  
  


You’re about to head to the last stall with your favorite mysterious man and his jams (actual fruit jams, though you’ve been told that he knows how to boogie if the situation arises, much to his daughter’s mortification) when your phone lets out an over-loud _chirp!_ that has several people instinctively swiveling your way.

  
  


It’s a precaution to have your phone’s volume on high when Dave isn’t with you. But that doesn’t mean you’re saved from looking like a socially uneducated moron when it actually makes noise.

  
  


For once, you’re expecting Hal, but get Kankri.

  
  


As you’ve remarked before, it’s always going to be strange getting texts from Kankri, because that man loves talking more than he loves Jesus. Which is something you’ll never say to his face – you do actually experience fear every now and again – but you will wholeheartedly believe even if he won’t admit to it.

  
  


Although today it’s strange mostly in its composition.

  
  


‘come home watch kids’

  
  


It takes a few moments for the urgency to settle over you. Once it does, it will not leave you alone.

  
  


“Everything alright?”

  
  


You look up and belatedly realize that you walked to the man’s stall without being aware of doing so. He’s got a new eye-patch. It’s colorful. If you were in a better state of mind, you’d compliment what is no doubt his daughter’s work.

  
  


“I don’t know,” you answer him honestly.

  
  


With quick yet professional movements, he picks a jar out for you and hands it over. “You’d better hurry then.”

  
  


You hand over the exact amount in cash and take the jar. You trust him implicitly, sure that what he’s given you is what you wanted in the first place.

  
  


Leaving without saying a proper goodbye, you dazedly make your way back to your truck. Even bumping into several people isn’t enough to break you out of the spiral you find yourself in.

  
  


‘come home watch kids’? You try to call Kankri, but he never picks up. You don’t bother leaving a voice mail.

  
  


You wonder if it has something to do with Rosa. She’s hasn’t had the best of health since you met her, but you didn’t think it was ever your place to point it out. Migraines. Allergies. Aches and pains. Ducking out of events at the last minute, leaving you and Kankri to take care of her girls.

  
  


‘come home watch kids’

  
  


_Why?_

  
  


The worst is brewing in your brain. You can’t stop it.

  
  


You get in your truck and start it, not giving it enough time to sit and heat up before you’re peeling out of the jerry-rigged gravel-grass parking area.

  
  


If Kankri said ‘watch kids’ then that means it must not involve Dave or Karkat, right? It means Kankri needs to go somewhere.

  
  


Maybe he forgot to pay a bill and needs to go to the bank faster than you can make it home, so he’s taking the town bus.

  
  


Maybe it’s something to do with Rosa. Or her girls. Maybe somebody needs an ER visit again, only this time you aren’t close enough to bother calling.

  
  


Your hands tighten on the wheel. You go ten, fifteen, twenty above the speed limit.

  
  


Maybe it’s _Kankri_ that needs help.

  
  


When you finally pull up to the apartments, your parking job is terrible and you forget all the damn groceries in the backseat. You beat feet to the door; Karkat opens it before you can knock. He must’ve been watching for you.

  
  


Karkat interrupts whatever you were about to say with, “We don’t know what’s going on, just that he got a phone call and practically ran out the door.”

  
  


“That’s concerning,” you tell him.

  
  


“To put it lightly, yea.”

  
  


Behind him, Dave walks over with a juice box, seemingly unaffected if not for how he fidgets with the hem of his t-shirt constantly. “Sup, Bro. You hear from him?”

  
  


You shake your head.

  
  


The kids both deflate.

  
  


You decide that you’d rather occupy yourself than sit around consumed with worry, so you go back down to fix your truck into a better spot that’s less likely to earn you a ticket then haul all of the groceries up.

  
  


Karkat helps you guess where Kankri might want everything, but you both give up halfway through – Kan is very specific and will no doubt not enjoy what’s being put where. If he finds the kale chips in the fridge, then he finds the kale chips in the fridge.

  
  


You quickly run out of things to do. You’re all glancing at phones every other minute, but no calls go through and no texts get answered.

  
  


Dave’s practically bouncing off the walls whereas Karkat has resigned himself to sitting on the floor, one elbow on his knee, fist holding up his chin, gaze set on the door straight ahead.

  
  


You wish you had something to suggest, but as quickly as you think of them, you dash the ideas due to practicality. Dave would enjoy running it off at the park, but Karkat would not be okay with being away from home in case Kankri comes back. You’d like to compromise and perhaps visit the apartment pool, which overlooks the parking lot and thus where Kankri would arrive from, but it looks like the pool hasn’t been opened yet due to the unnaturally chilly weather lately.

  
  


All in all, you’re stuck.

  
  


A strange urge hits you, one that has you wishing Caliborn was only a man instead of a ghost, because then he’d have cellphone that you could call. Then he might even be here with you, helping you get through this in his own tone-deaf way.

  
  


You can hardly imagine him and Kankri getting along, but you can definitely imagine Caliborn driving your truck. Or dropping you off at the grocery, picking Dave up from school, picking you up, then taking you all home. That way Dave would never have to walk.

  
  


You can imagine him meeting Hal. What a disaster that would be. In this scenario, it would be a normal disaster instead of a supernatural one.

  
  


Your ditsy daydream is overtaken by what is to come, shadowed by anxiety. Of Hal toppling your tremulous sanctuary with nothing in his gaze but contempt, judging thanklessness in his sneer. Of Dave slamming doors in your face, then never coming back.

  
  


Of Hal with Cal’s hell red eyes.

  
  


You never thought to check what you look like when Cal is you.

  
  


A shudder works its way through you. You don’t know why you thought of something so disturbing, but you wish you hadn’t.

  
  


You tell yourself that wish you knew what it was that Dave wasn’t ready to tell you. It haunts you behind every other thought, for all you try not to let it.

  
  


Even though you think you have a pretty good idea what it was.

  
  


Across the room, Dave chews on his Celtic knot ring and distractedly plays some game on his phone, resigned to silence after being brushed off by his stressing friend one too many times, glancing up at the door often like Kankri’s going to come falling in at any second.

  
  


Unsurprisingly, that’s not what happens.

  
  


Though it _is_ a close second.

  
  


It’s not only Kankri that comes falling in the door, but Mituna and his dad and what feels like the whole damn neighborhood.

  
  


You’re so surprised that you’re the last one to stand as more and more people file in. Mituna’s got ahold of Kankri’s arm like he’s about to fall over at any second and Captor Papa is gripping both of their shoulders, expression an island apart from the distraught horror of Kankri’s.

  
  


Behind them is Sollux with his hand looped into a boy’s. Someone you recognize vaguely, but not in a way that suggests you’ve actually met him before. More like you once heard him be described, or you’ve seen pictures of someone he’s related to.

  
  


He’s just some white kid with a purple streak in his blond hair and gold piercings on his face, but the way he looks utterly bloodless and wan has got your gut falling straight down to the floor.

  
  


In an absolutely awful twist of events, Kankri takes one look at you with his glassy, distant eyes and immediately bursts into tears.

  
  


Your first thought is, _‘I am a monster.’_

  
  


Your second thought is, _‘I am going to kill whoever did this to him.’_

  
  


As far as your understanding of how the world works, both have equal chances of being true.

  
  


Mituna makes an uncomfortable noise and wretches himself away from his dad, taking a stumbling Kankri with him. He practically throws the crying man at you, and you have to catch him like you’re in here playing football or some shit.

  
  


Then Mituna stomps over to Sollux and tries to pry his little brother apart from the other kid, but Sollux hisses, _“No, _Tuna! I’m making sure Eridan can’t run away, let _go!”_

  
  


While watching all of this, Kankri feels like he’s trying to disappear inside of your rib cage with how hard he presses his face and hands to your chest. He’s shaking so badly you can hardly keep hold of him. You of all people know what it feels like to be unable to speak, so you decide not to force him to tell you anything just yet.

  
  


Eridan, despite being closer to the age of a man than a boy, looks massively discomfited, and does nothing. Mituna throws his long arms up and plops down right there on the floor. Sollux hits him with the white cane, which is about effective as sanding stone with copy paper.

  
  


From the corner, where Karkat’s dragged Dave in some kind of defensive position, Karkat screams, “CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON OR DO I HAVE TO LISTEN TO MY OLDER BROTHER CRY HIMSELF TO DEATH WHILE EVERYBODY RESPONSIBLE STANDS AROUND SHOVING THUMBS UP EACH OTHER’S ASSES!?”

  
  


Captor Papa chooses that moment to close the front door.

  
  


No one speaks. Karkat pants and Kankri struggles to breathe at all.

  
  


Someone takes in an audible breath to make an attempt at filling the silence, but is stopped by the croaking, _“Wait,”_ that comes from somewhere buried in your shirt.

  
  


Kankri detaches from you and shuffles a short mile away to the kitchen counter, where he leans on it what must be the weight of the entire world from the way he folds and staggers.

  
  


You follow him, hovering. He reaches behind himself without looking and places a solid hand to your chest, pushing you a few steps back. You stay there.

  
  


Without facing anyone, he sighs deeply, a low groan tainting the end of it. The muscles of his back are bunched up and tense, his fingers digging into the cheap, fake granite.

  
  


“Karkat,” he says so quietly that it’s a wonder anyone can hear him at all, but the room is dead silent. “You may not remember him because you were so little, but… I… He… His name was Cronus. We’d been dating for almost five years when he left.” He stands up straighter. “When I thought he left, when _everybody_ thought he left.”

  
  


Karkat steps forward, looking hesitant. He bats Dave’s hand away when it tries to grab his shirt and pull him back. “I remember Cronus – you show me pictures of him, like, every Christmas. So what?”

  
  


“So _everything,”_ Kankri says in a heavy voice that you’ve never heard come from him. Even Karkat looks out of his depth, despite being the only one to speak back. “I’ve been told today that he. He was- actually, he was murdered by his own father. He never left at all.”

  
  


When he turns, Kankri’s smile is empty. His eyes crinkle shut. A tear slides down his cheek. “He was right here the whole time.”

  
  


From the open window, a bird chirps. Someone’s water heater groans from a floor down. A car passes by, indistinct voices floating out of it.

  
  


Karkat looks to be deeply sickened. You are not far behind.

  
  


“He was always talking about how much he wanted to leave,” Kankri continues, “but he said he’d stay around for his little cousin. I thought it was weird when he moved to Gravity Falls with me and his family followed him, but it’s not like he visited them often. I just believed it when Meenah told me Cronus must have gotten sick of them and skipped town.” He shakes minutely. “I believed it.”

  
  


He wipes a hand down his face, smearing water. “But they found bruises on Eridan.” He gestures at the teen, who looks about ready to bolt for the door if not for Sollux’s painful grip that’s snaked up his arm. “And then they found bones in the basement, and… And…”

  
  


With no grip left to keep himself upright, Kankri collapses in on himself, moaning, “Oh, Cronus… Oh God, oh _God –”_

  
  


You shoot forward at the same time as Mituna to stop him from hitting the floor. If anybody’s surprised at that, it doesn’t change how you grab one arm and Mituna grabs the other, carting Kankri over to the couch where he hides his crumbling face into his own palms and leans over so far his forehead nearly touches his knees.

  
  


The perfect picture of repose, of grief.

  
  


It’s admittedly disturbing to watch, but it feels equally disrespectful to look away, so you don’t.

  
  


Mituna runs an uncommonly gentle and steady hand through Kankri’s hair, mumbling, “Kanny, Kanny, Kanny,” over and over until he says, “It’s not your fault, Kanny.”

  
  


“I- I- I _knoooow thaaat!”_ Kankri sobs, his fingers clawing at the sides of his face until you intervene and pick them off, where they then grip your wrists in desperation. “I- I’m just so _angry,_ I’m so _sad,_ why didn’t they find him sooner!? Why wasn’t he put to rest faster, why didn’t I think better of him!? Maybe if I had I wouldn’t have- have felt like this for _so long!”_

  
  


Kankri blubbers uncontrollably again before getting enough control to continue, _“Ohh, _he was so young, I just don’t get it, how could his dad do something like that to him? He- he had gotten away from them, he could’ve been so happy! How could he do that to Cronus!?” It sounds earth-shatteringly painful, the way he forces out, _“How could he do that to _us!” He grits his teeth against what would’ve been an outright wail, did he not plop his face onto your shoulder and then stay there.

  
  


You twist your wrists out of his shaking, clammy hands and wind them around his torso until he feels appropriately hidden. You take turns sharing stilted looks with other people in the room before the tension mostly dissipates and feet aren’t cemented to the floor anymore.

  
  


Around you, people are in a muted flurry of activity while you’re stuck on the couch, sacrificing yet another shirt to someone else’s snot and tears. Captor Papa tries to gain order, but it’s a futile effort considering you’re not about to help him, and Mituna is Mituna.

  
  


From the corner of the room you can hear Eridan say in a shell-shocked voice, “I didn’t think anything of it when my ‘cousin’ Cro stopped coming around, I was too little. My dad isn’t even my dad. He’s my uncle. I had no idea…” Sollux says something back, and then you lose track of them because Karkat and Dave come inching over.

  
  


They look like they have no idea what they’re supposed to do. There’s this detached glint in Dave’s eyes that makes you think of the glass balls they put in stuffed animal’s heads. Karkat’s faring no better, looking like he’s teetering between overwhelmed and defensively angry, though at who and at what is a current mystery.

  
  


You limply let Kankri do with you what he may, and at one point you think he’s about to straight up crawl into your lap, but all he does is clumsily reach down and shuck off his shoes before curling his legs up under himself and then continuing to quietly fall apart with his head under your chin.

  
  


“I’m sorry…” Karkat mumbles, reaching over to awkwardly pap at Kankri’s cheek before pulling away.

  
  


“No, Karkat, it’ll be okay,” Kankri finds it in himself to say, though it sounds like it takes effort, his throat gummed up. “I’m just- this is a lot, right now. I just need –” He turns away. His cold, wet nose pokes into your jugular.

  
  


Holding the hand of a visibly defeated Karkat, Dave stares at the scene and offers nothing.

  
  


Mituna comes back over, which is odd considering you never noticed him standing up to do whatever it was he was doing. He looks down at Kankri with an expression that you have trouble reading. He doesn’t appear as if he has any sort of specific action currently in mind – he’s simply still and watching.

  
  


It ineffectively reminds you that he and Kankri have a history that you are not up to learning about yet.

  
  


“What will happen to Eridan?” You decide to ask him.

  
  


He shrugs. “Eehh, he’s almosst eighteen. Sol def won’t let him go, even if Dad iss uh, not fucken’ happy about it.”

  
  


Something must show in your face because Mituna grimaces, scratching violently at his head. “He’ll be ssafe with us. His, uh, heh, cunt of a dad-uncle iss in jail. Prob- probably can’t get out of a murder charge like he could an abuse one.”

  
  


Captor Papa walks up. Mituna steps back in a move you would call of respect if it were anybody else. He holds out a piece of paper to Kankri, but Kan’s a little busy, so you take it for him.

  
  


Your hands brush slightly.

  
  


The patriarch of the Captor family looks as if he’s trying to see directly into your soul for a long moment before he pulls away.

  
  


When the biggest guy in the room finally gets out of your line of sight, it reveals Dave, who’s straight up glaring at Captor Papa’s back.

  
  


You raise an eyebrow at him. Like a little shit, he raises one in return.

  
  


Mituna scoots back over with a bundle of toilet paper in his hand, which he shoves up under Kankri’s nose until he stiltedly takes it. Surreptitiously, you slide the paper into Kankri’s jacket pocket.

  
  


Unexpectedly, Mituna whispers, “Smoochy-smoochy,” and dives in for a quick kiss onto the top of Kan’s mortified face. He then uses Kan like a launching point, hitting you with the same treatment on your cheek before you can go, ‘god please no.’

  
  


He dances away, happier than when he arrived and probably the only person leaving that way.

  
  


You and Kan share twin looks before he remembers that he’s in a pit of grief and gets back to sniffling. Only this time his snot goes into tissues instead of your shirt.

  
  


Once again, the Captors (plus Eridan) vacate the premises faster than you realize they’re gone. They’re good at doing that. You assume that any further conversations on the matter are to be postponed until Kankri is feeling… not as bad.

  
  


When you think to check the time, it’s not all that late, but it definitely makes you aware that a lot more time has passed than you had accounted for.

  
  


It’s understandable, considering what’s going on, but you’re suddenly left wondering what the rest of the day will look like.

  
  


Turns out, it’ll look like a whole lot of fuckall.

  
  


The kids are too shaken up to do much of anything. At first, they make a token effort to try and stay around Kankri, show him some love, mostly lead by Karkat, but they eventually retreat back to the bedroom. You don’t blame them.

  
  


You’re left with Kankri, who you don’t have the first clue on how to deal with beyond doing whatever he wants you to. Sometimes he’ll mumble something like, “About time you all should be getting home…” in such a forlorn way that you do the exact opposite, staying right there.

  
  


After a couple more of those, though, you say, “Do you actually want me to leave?”

  
  


He goes,_ “No!”_ so fast and so loud that the kids poke their heads out of the room to check and make sure something else disastrous hasn’t happened. You wave them off.

  
  


“Then we’re not leaving.” You adjust his limbs so that it feels less like he’s trying to crush your ribs. “Honestly, Kan – you think I’m gonna be like ‘you good?’ then leave when you’re like this?”

  
  


He gives you a thin smile. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking –”

  
  


Abruptly, he makes a horrible choked-off noise. His hands tighten so badly that you wheeze, but like a good friend, you don’t throw him on the floor.

  
  


“The groceries!” He tries to stand up and nearly falls on his ass, not realizing all that sitting and curling up he was doing cut off circulation. “What _was _I thinking? I didn’t even take the time to explain to you what was going on, I just blew out of here!”

  
  


“The groceries are taken care of,” you try to placate him with, having trouble loosening his titanic grip with anything close to gentleness. “Karkat helped me put them away.”

  
  


“Oh, what a mess.” Kankri tries to pull away from you, but contradictory, his hand still keeps desperate hold of your upper arm. “Have you all eaten yet?”

  
  


“I’m sure we can make something simple tonight.” You grab him by the shoulder and turn him towards you. “Kankri, stop. It’ll be okay. Stop worrying about a bunch of shit that you don’t need to. I’m right here – I can do it for you.”

  
  


He looks at you for a stretch of time that you don’t think you properly prepared yourself for. The tears that fill his eyes now speak nothing of grief, but everything of gratitude.

  
  


“Dirk…” Kankri smiles, a watery thing. He breathes until he’s steadied himself, then nods. “Okay… Okay.” With the hand that was practically glued to you all afternoon, he uses it to clap your shoulder. “Hell with it, let’s make tacos.”

* * *

You and Dave spend the night.

  
  


Obviously.

  
  


Several problems arise.

  
  


_Obviously._

  
  


Kankri is acting erratic, which isn’t something you can say you didn’t expect, but you’re still at somewhat of a loss on what to do.

  
  


The kids have ‘gone to bed’ which is a loose term that surely means diddly squat. They both have cellphones; you’re not stupid. Every so often, there’s raised voices or giggling coming from the hallway. They’ll just have to tire themselves out, because the adults are in no shape to deal with their shenanigans.

  
  


Kankri gets ready for bed. Kankri gets in bed. Kankri gets out of bed. Kankri wanders around and fusses. Kankri gets back into bed. Kankri gets back out of bed.

  
  


You get the picture.

  
  


It’s closing in on midnight when you’re jolted out of a doze. Kankri is hunched over sitting up, hands locked across his mouth to stifle his body-wracking sobs, eyes wide and white as he stares at nothing.

  
  


You sit up. He flinches back.

  
  


“Kan…” You drape an arm over him. Slowly, reluctantly, he unwinds until he’s less like a specimen of onset rigor mortis. “You’ve probably heard this before, might even said it to someone yourself, but: It’s okay to not be okay. You don’t have to act like everything’s normal. It literally just happened to you, you’re allowed to have a night to fall apart.”

  
  


“But I don’t _want_ to fall apart!” Kankri breathes deeply, failing to calm himself. “I- He- Cronus and I weren’t exactly married, or related, I can’t take bereavement leave for this. He’s technically been dead for over a decade. I don’t have the time to fall apart! I have texts to annotate, emails to send, a younger brother to look out for!”

  
  


“Yes you do,” you tell him firmly. “You have tonight at the very least. Whoever you’re working for will understand taking a Sunday off for religious services if nothing else. And you know I mean it when I say I’m right here.”

  
  


“What if it takes longer?” He sounds utterly lost, crumpled together and gazing up at you like you hold answers. “What if I’m not okay by Monday, or by the kids’ graduation day? What If I’m never okay? What do we do then?”

  
  


“Of course you won’t be okay by then.” He seems taken aback. “This shit takes so much time, more than you’d even believe. You’ve felt it once before with your dad, but it’ll feel new every single time. I bet you’re still not okay about your dad, right?”

  
  


“No… I mean, I don’t want to say I’m _okay _about my father being dead, but…”

  
  


“It never stops,” you finish for him. “When you love somebody, it won’t stop. Not ever. Even if you didn’t want to admit that you loved them until they were gone…”

  
  


You yourself have to cut off there, becoming overwhelmed for reasons you cannot disclose even to yourself, lest you become less than useless. That can wait. It can always wait.

  
  


“Dirk…?”

  
  


Bringing your hands up to his shoulders, you push him back as more of a suggestion rather than a demand. “Try to get some sleep. And if you don’t, that’s cool – we know the kids know how to make waffles. Sleeping in will only be a slight hazard.”

  
  


Kankri gives a weak snort. He flutters his eyes closed, laying on his back in that weirdly stiff way he does.

  
  


This time, he gives you until sometime after three before he seems to make a frustrated attempt to escape.

  
  


At first you let him go, figuring he’s only using the bathroom. But then upwards of fifteen minutes pass after the toilet flushes and you get up to seek him out.

  
  


He’s standing near the front door, looking down at the pile of shoes like he’s got bad ideas forming. You make sure to shuffle your feet, make noise when you approach him. He doesn’t startle either way.

  
  


You grasp his hand and lead him quietly back to bed like he’s a tired, pouting child. He doesn’t fight you. Doesn’t try to explain. That’s worrying.

  
  


Neither of you immediately lay back down, sitting on opposite sides of the bed. You can see the outline of his face, remember how once upon a time he shared a jawline with Rosa, only now it’s filled out and angular. It works back and forth like he’s grinding his teeth.

  
  


When he tries to get up, you see the broad, frustrated line of his shoulder, still clad in binders since you know he can’t afford the top surgery. You reach out near blindly and lay your hand on his skin.

  
  


He stops in motion. Lets out a sigh that slumps him like he’s truly giving up this time.

  
  


He turns back around, lifts his feet into bed, and scoots much closer than you had intended. Like this, there’s no gap in height. His thick eyebrows are pulled down, but the longer you engage in a staring contest, the more his expression softens until it becomes resigned.

  
  


On some cue you did not predict, he leans forward and chastely kisses your cheek. It lingers. It’s not as warm as your mind thinks it should be. When you expect him to pull away fully, he instead moves to your ear, pressing his face there and humming in a way that sends gentle vibrations down to your heart.

  
  


You swear you hear a _caw, _not with your ears, but with something deeper.

  
  


It’s cold.

  
  


A gasp. Too late, you realize it was you as you jerk away as if struck.

  
  


“What’s wrong?”

  
  


You don’t know how to form it into words. “I can’t.”

  
  


Even in the low light can you see his wide-eye’d panic. At any other time, it would be funny. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t coming on to you like _that!”_

  
  


“I know. You wouldn’t. But, even like this, I can’t…” You can’t finish the sentence is what you can’t do. It all crams up into your throat like oil stopping before it breaches hot, dry soil.

  
  


You don’t know how to put it, can’t pin it with a finger or your tongue, but you know it’s there.

  
  


You know Caliborn is somewhere nestled into your chest, your brain, and he won’t be budged. Not even for Kankri.

  
  


You take the precious slow time of night to study your friend’s face.

  
  


Yes. Not even for Kankri.

  
  


“Right, right…” Kankri leans back, running a hand through his curly hair so that it sticks up everywhere in clumps. “Is there already someone you see in a… platonic sense?”

  
  


You don’t give yourself an excess amount of time to damn yourself. You speedrun straight to the heart of it, dig your fingers into the fibers, and pull its offal mess apart.

  
  


You nod.

  
  


Kankri seems to sigh all of his worries out, drawing you closer for a hug. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t be doing this right now anyways. I’m vulnerable and you’re out of your depth. It would be stupid to start something I otherwise would logically think I wouldn’t be able to finish.”

  
  


“Yeah.” You awkwardly pat his back and try not to feel like you’ve dropped a glass heart down a waste chute. You fail. “Yeah, I… You don’t know him. But I hope you get to meet him someday.”

  
  


Kankri’s innocently supportive, “Of course,” makes you pinch your eyes closed in remorse.

  
  


Despite that interaction conventionally being considered a disaster on both accounts, something about it must have distracted Kankri enough to fall asleep, because he doesn’t find time to wander the halls like a mournful banshee again.

  
  


As if you’ve taken his sleepless burden, you on the other hand cannot close your eyes for longer than a few seconds before they shoot back open again in attempts to escape what you imagine behind the dark lids. It’s nostalgic.

  
  


It’s a long few hours until something changes, and unfortunately for you, that change is not sleep, but a crow that lands on the thin metal sill of the cracked-open window.

  
  


A bit flabbergasted (though honestly why would you be? You’ve faced down a huge fuckoff not-raccoon monster and lived. What’s a red-eye’d crow with unknown loyalty at this point? Pebbles and small, useless shiny things, that’s what) you and it simply stare at each other.

  
  


It ruffles its jet black feathers and appears as if it is ready to go absolutely nowhere.

  
  


You creep out of bed slowly so as to not wake Kankri.

  
  


The crow in the window pins you with spiteful red eyes, but you move closer despite this.

  
  


Hesitantly, you try to poke it with a finger. It snaps at you, its beak much larger when open than when closed. You don’t try to touch it again.

  
  


Well, since it’s here and all…

  
  


“Hi,” you whisper lamely. “Can you…?”

  
  


It gazes at you.

  
  


Right. Possessed crow or whatever, but still a birdbrain. Probably not exactly a direct line to poltergeist central. That would be _too_ convenient.

  
  


“Just. Tell Caliborn something important came up. Can’t be home for a while,” you settle on. “Or don’t.”

  
  


At first you flinch back, thinking it’s trying to bite you again, but it merely nips at your chin. It stings.

  
  


“Augh,” you quietly anguish. “This isn’t Harry Potter or some shit, I don’t have anythin’ to give you. Except my eyeballs.”

  
  


The crow peers at you sideways.

  
  


“Please don’t take my eyeballs.”

  
  


It tries to nip at you again, but this time you narrowly dodge, earning yourself a soft _caw_ before it finally seems satisfied in some mysterious way and free falls off the building like an action movie hero.

  
  


You have no idea what you’ve done. You stand at the window and watch it fly away into the blue night until you can’t see it anymore, in which you throw your hands up and decide that laying around in someone else’s bed in someone else’s pajamas sounds better than sordid meetings with bitchy corvids. You turn around.

  
  


Dave is standing at the foot, staring at you.

  
  


“_Jesus!” _You jump about a mile in the air, one hand on your chest. “Kid, you scared the shit outta me.”

  
  


He shrugs. “Soz.”

  
  


“What’re you doin’ up? You need somethin’?” You peek at the bed. Kankri’s dead asleep. The clock on the table glows 5:32.

  
  


“Thought I heard voices.” Dave twirls his necklace in one hand. In the light of the streetlamp outside, he looks a little different. If you turn your head to the side, you’re sure you could see other people in him than only you and his mystery mom.

  
  


You don’t turn your head.

  
  


“Was that Garfield?” Dave steps up to the window, making you realize that he’s not all that short anymore. All he has to do is look out, no tiptoes needed or nothing. “It a messenger pigeon now?”

  
  


“Yea, that was Garfield. And I have no clue, actually.”

  
  


Dave gives you a look that’s all teen-aged judgment, no punches pulled. “So you were out here talking to a bird?”

  
  


With a light snort, you grab his noggin and push him back towards Karkat’s ajar bedroom door. You spot his shirt – Karkat will soon be wondering where it went, because Dave is definitely going to steal it. “Go back to bed, li’l bro. I’m sure Karkat’s missing his pillow.”

  
  


His expression gets even stinkier. “M’not a little kid anymore. An’ out of all of us, you’re definitely the pillow.” As he walks backwards, he cups his chest and bounces his hands like-

  
  


Not laughing takes serious effort. You cover your _excuuse me, these are_ _pectorals_ with one arm, making Dave giggle as he closes the door behind himself.

  
  


You stagnate at the window for a while yet until Kankri makes a pitiful snuffling noise. You crawl back into bed, resigned to wait out the small amount of time before sunrise, in which a difficult day is surely to follow.

* * *

Kankri’s not exactly ‘better’ by the time the kids graduate from Eighth Grade to Ninth Grade, resulting in a whopping one whole classroom change considering Gravity Fall’s last High School got destroyed in an ‘environmental disaster’ and was thus merged with the Middle School years ago. But he does okay, from your perspective.

  
  


It’s a little funny to see him snub people from the PTA that he was trying to make good with not long ago, but you think the only person laughing may be you. You bring him bottles of water to sip on and steer him clear of any teachers Karkat’s reportedly had beef with. It’s hard because Karkat has beef with most authority figures, and he’s not afraid to tell his family and friends all about it.

  
  


When Kankri seems to be trying to fight the History teacher with his Vantas Glare alone, you decide to get seats as far away from the faculty as possible.

  
  


Rosa’s got a terrible migraine and unfortunately has to duck out before the ceremony even begins, so at Kankri’s behest you make sure to bring an extra battery pack and a physical memory disk to upload the file into while you record from your phone.

  
  


You were informed that Meulin accidentally scheduled a tour of a college on the same day, and isn’t allowed to skip it because college tours cost gas money, college applications even moreso.

  
  


You take pictures of Kanaya in her sparkling red hijab as she kisses her little sister’s cheek and hands over the traditional bouquet of flowers. Terezi starts exaggeratedly huffing it immediately.

  
  


Despite not thinking it the best idea, you make sure to take pictures of Vriska as well. She looks a lot better kept than usual, her long tawny hair washed and brushed (you should know, considering you were begged to sneak into the girls’ bathroom to brush it for her. She had so many knots in her otherwise straight hair that she was near in tears, but you think you did okay. At least you didn’t resort to cutting it) but she’s looped a comically large blue tie around her neck and refuses to let anybody tie it correctly. What you assume must be her past homeroom teacher shakes their head at her.

  
  


All the pictures of Dave you take are ones you send to Hal. He only responds in obnoxious emojis.

  
  


Yeah, no – you’re not playing any games today.

  
  


You have Dave pose by flipping off the camera. It’s the last picture you send Hal before you shut your phone off entirely.

  
  


As per another past graduation tradition, you take the kids out to ice cream. With Rosa not there to make up for the lack of vehicle space, you banish yourself to lounge in the bed of the truck (an action that never would’ve flown in the city, but you’ve been told is A-okay out in the boonies) while Kanaya is up front making good use of her freshly earned driver’s permit.

  
  


She hits one bush that poufs up and fills the inside of the truck with brambles, and you can visibly see Kankri trying to lecture her with Vriska starting shit while squeezed in the back seat with Dave, Karkat, and Terezi, but other than that it’s all good.

  
  


After everybody’s gotten their ice cream and settled, Kankri reveals that he was carrying around an utterly innocuous shoulder bag for a reason. He pulls out his old, but gently used, laptop. He hands it to Karkat.

  
  


Karkat looks a little wet in the eyes, seeming like he’s going to say something soulful to his brother, when Dave interrupts by poking Karkat on the cheek until he whips around in barely-concealed fury.

  
  


“Minecraft,” Dave stage-whispers._ “__Minecraft.”_

  
  


“Miiinecraaaft,” Terezi joins him.

  
  


“Minecraft! Minecraft!” Vriska chants, banging her fisted plastic spoons against the old wood like they’re metal knives and she’s at a warrior’s table. “Minecraft, Minecraft!”

  
  


By the time Karkat excitedly yells the final, “MINECRAFT!” Kanaya has resorted to covering her ears and trying to sit at another table to act like she doesn’t know anybody here.

  
  


“Bro, gimme something, I almost got as many A’s as Karkat did,” Dave faux-whines, trying to steal bites of your sundae.

  
  


You swat him away even as you allow him to have it. “Hal sent you a new PlayStation Ultra literally yesterday, chill out.”

  
  


“It’s not new, his frickin’ ripped boyfriend broke it first. You can literally still see the finger indentations.” Dave switches to stealing bites out of Karkat’s mint chocolate volcano, whose owner doesn’t notice it happening because he’s too busy realizing that the laptop is dead and won’t turn on unless he plugs it in first.

  
  


“Mint. Condition,” you insist. You scoot his strawberry cheesecake milkshake up under his nose. “If you didn’t want this, then why did you order it. Thought strawberry anything was your favorite.”

  
  


Dave licks the last bit of minty foam from Karkat’s spoon before placing it back into the bowl like he hadn’t just done that. “Don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answer to.”

  
  


Because you weren’t expecting anything like that, you balk at him.

  
  


“Well that was unnecessarily dramatic,” comments Terezi, who Dave must’ve forgotten was literally listening in to everything. She stirs her raspberry smoothie with a huge green straw, pulling it out to gesture, flicking red juice everywhere. “Just say you yearn and leave.”

  
  


While Dave turns into a tomato, Vriska slaps her palms on the table and laughs uproariously, nearly causing her triple scoop of Superman to tip over.

  
  


Kanaya resorts to vacating the seating entirely, going to hide in the bathrooms until Kankri comes searching for her.

* * *

Karkat’s fourteenth birthday that June is much less of a disaster than his thirteenth. Mostly because nobody almost drowns (namely you) but also because it’s one of Kankri’s better mood days where his depressive funk is nowhere to be smelt.

  
  


In contrast to the rash of cold weather in Spring, this Summer comes in hot, and seems to want to stay that way. Everybody’s so desperate to cool off that nothing food-wise gets set up – the trip down to the apartment’s pool is a flight spent slapping on last-minute sunscreen or slurping on one of the many cheap popsicles Terezi and Dave begged you into buying on the way over.

  
  


Even Kankri gets in the pool, surprising everyone with how he shucks off almost all of his clothes and cannonballs in, one hand pinching his nose and the other holding his knees into the perfect curled position that makes enough splash to damn near drench Eridan and Kanaya, who are trying to occupy lounge chairs on opposite sides of the pool.

  
  


While Sollux snickers in delight, Eridan slowly wipes his glasses off. Kanaya excuses herself to go wring her hijab out.

  
  


It’s something of a full house – Sollux means Mituna, which means the ever watchful Captor Papa, now including his temporary charge Eridan. Karkat means Dave, obviously, but Karkat and Dave means Terezi, who must’ve dragged Vriska along, because here she is, trying to eat two blue raspberry popsicles at once and nearly frostbiting the roof of her mouth.

  
  


Captor Papa is occupying the up front and center chair Kankri would normally sit in. Every time Mituna swims close to you, his dad sits up straight like he thinks something’s about to happen. It never does, but it serves to make you way more anxious than you were when you first gently slid into the pool and didn’t experience any explicit PTSD flashbacks.

  
  


You still don’t think you can swim, but being six feet tall helps a lot. All you have to do is walk, albeit slowly. You have no intentions of going to the deeper end, so that’s that.

  
  


“Tez! Tez-Dispenser!” Vriska’s yelling across the pool as if Terezi isn’t literally right there in front of her, bobbing in the water while she stands on the asphalt holding so many more popsicle wrappers than she was a minute ago. “I bet I can fit eight of these in my mouth!”

  
  


Terezi cackles. “Even if you did, I wouldn’t be able to see it, you dumbass!”

  
  


“Blind bitch!” Vriska hoots. “Well what if I took a picture then turned up the color contrast by, like, eight thousand or something!?”

  
  


Kanaya, having returned to her chair, looks on in entranced horror. You find yourself doing the same even as Sollux kicks you in the back from where he sits at the edge.

  
  


Eridan is somewhere behind you, too, never straying far from wherever Sollux is, but from what Mituna’s blabbed to you in late-night texts, the kid doesn’t talk much these days.

  
  


Your own kid(s??) are braving the deeper end to engage in a game of chicken with Kankri and Mituna. You can’t tell if it makes you a bad person or not for being nervous about how Dave is balanced on Mituna’s shoulders, but you figure even with Karkat on Kankri’s, Kan should be able to handle any mishaps, because you are definitely not putting a single toe closer to the 10’ line.

  
  


As far as you can tell, neither team wins or loses because Karkat and Dave keep trading complicated yet creative insults and tickling each other instead of doing anything remotely related to the actual game.

  
  


Rosa arrives late with Meulin in tow. Kankri abandons the pool to go tend to his secret mother. Meulin tries to replace him in the game, but is unable to actually lift Karkat out of the water because she’s so short, something that obviously causes Karkat embarrassment.

  
  


He tries out lifting her despite being almost five years younger than she is. It all goes great until everybody realizes that Meulin is one ruthless motherfucker, and just about KO’s Dave into the water during the first round.

  
  


You hold off on your heart attack because Mituna gamely fishes him out and flashes you a thumbs up to show that your little brother is okay and not making out with the bottom of the pool.

  
  


Suddenly Vriska really really REALLY wants to play. Dave and Karkat immediately tap out, doggy-paddling over to where you’re lounged against one corner. They huddle up against you like you can save them from the wild wild girls or something. In your experience: you cannot.

  
  


Across the pool, Vriska, Terezi, Meulin, and a very excited Mituna engage in a much more violent game of chicken than the one before it.

  
  


“Gotdam.” Dave sniffs up watery snot. Terezi gets Vriska in a choke-hold. “Is this what happens when kids get hit with the teenager stick one too many times or is it just, like, what happens to girls.”

  
  


“I think it might only happen to girls,” says Karkat in a wise voice as Meulin digs both heels into Mituna’s gut. They aren’t even trying to stay on shoulders anymore – it’s a brawl in the making. “You know Jade?”

  
  


“’Course I know Jade. Who doesn’t know Jade? Why did you start this so awkwardly.” Dave winces when Captor Papa walks to the edge of the pool and plucks Terezi out with one arm before she can be fully pushed under by Vriska. She fights him the whole way. “Why, you think she’s got the Crazy Girl juice just waiting to spring her once she hits thirteen this year? Wouldn’t put it past her tbh.”

  
  


You’re basically squatting against the wall, both knees out and locked to be used as rudimentary stools for sitting on. It’s not the most comfortable position, but the boys seem fine with you hearing whatever conversation they’re having, so you don’t move. Thankfully, Sollux and Eridan retreated over to Kanaya’s side of the pool, so there’s no moody teenager kicking at your head like a softball anymore.

  
  


“I mean, yea? She’s already got hit as far as I’m concerned,” argues Karkat, causing you to rapidly lose the context of the conversation, “But, I just. Uhh…”

  
  


“Spit it out,” goads Dave, reaching over and pinching at Karkat’s exposed belly fat. His hand gets slapped away, but it must not have hurt much, because he just grins. “Go ahead, wax that poetry, I’m sure it won’t be hella embarrassing or anything.”

  
  


“Shut up.” Despite Karkat’s upset face, he seems to be considering it. “Fine. I like Jade – she’s just so chaotic! People who first meet her think she’s soo sweet and innocent and _bluh,_ but I swear she and I have had some of the most appalling conversations ever where we’re just,” he mashes his hands together violently, “yelling shit at each other, letting it all out, but at the end of the day she’s still messaging me good morning and good night with those dumb smiley faces.”

  
  


“She’s happy with you no matter what. I get’cha.” Dave sucks up more snot. He grips your arm around his shoulder a little tighter. You can see his neon pink shorts peek out from under his soaked t-shirt every time he swings his legs back and forth, their image distorted by the water. “So… you _like_ her, huh?”

  
  


Karkat nods, for once not having anything to verbally extrapolate. The rays of sunshine that breach the apartment building touch the ends of his dark brown hair.

  
  


Captor Papa rescues his son from the pool until it’s just Meulin and Vriska, a ball of tangled chaos that he appears to give up on detangling, frog marching Mituna to a towel.

  
  


Rosa and Kankri must be up in the apartment, or else you’re almost positive one or the other would’ve intervened by now, either to stop Meulin or to stop Vriska.

  
  


Meulin gives an overly-loud cackling laugh as she finally appears to best Vriska, damn near tossing the younger girl out of the pool.

  
  


Maybe both.

  
  


“You better not tell her that,” threatens Karkat, going so far as to raise his fist like he’s about to hit but never does, dropping it into the water with a harmless _plop_ that dots your chin with its splash.

  
  


Dave acts like he wasn’t concerned about being hit in the first place. “Suresure. Not my fault if you get too obvious tho, just gonna say that. She’s not actually dumb you know.”

  
  


“I’m not ‘obvious’ you sack of shit-eating worms! And I _never_ thought she was dumb in the first place!”

  
  


“Mmmmmokay. Not like that wasn’t the start of most of your early arguments with her, but, whatever.”

  
  


At Dave’s uninvolved response, Karkat separates from your huddle and spits over his shoulder at a low volume, “Why not try finding a mirror sometime if you’re looking for ‘obvious.’”

  
  


Dave raises a hand limply after Karkat before letting it drop. His shaded eyes betray no hurt, but he floats himself entirely into your lap and stays silent.

  
  


That is until Vriska really does try to fit eight blue popsicles into her mouth, causing the kids to all start screaming and Kankri to have a conniption and nearly convince you to drive her to the ER when she inevitably chokes.

  
  


You don’t. Like straight out of an episode of the old Spongebob cartoons, they melt and she’s fine, if really needing to go to the bathroom right after.

  
  


When you drive home, Karkat comes along for a sleepover. In the backseat, he and Dave engage in a thumb-wrestling contest that quickly devolves into a near-screaming match (with most of the volume coming from the Vantas side) about whether or not a bagel cut in half and filled with cream cheese is considered a sandwich, an argument Dave starts for seemingly the hell of it.

  
  


Late at night, once you’re allowed to retreat to your room after the boys have finally fallen asleep in front of some Youtube series pulled up on Dave’s computer, Caliborn is waiting patiently for you at his customary spot guarding the bedroom window.

  
  


“HOW WAS YOUR DAY?”

  
  


You say, “Fine,” because you want to skip past the part where you both act like he isn’t about to be inside your head.

  
  


The way he takes his time walking to you, around you, like he’s examining your body for any changes is so slow it could drive you mad in a completely different way than what you already are.

  
  


“Come on,” you goad under your breath, the tension building inside of you until it feels like you’re about to snap and start attacking him or, or something, _anything._ “Come _on,_ Cal, why’re wastin’ your time? You already know what I –” Want. Need. _Need. _Fuck it.

  
  


“TIME WITH YOU IS NOT WASTED.” His too-warm hands of green fissure and bone overlapped with a material that does not bother mimicking skin cup the sides of your face, forcing your head up until all you can see is the ceiling. “DO NOT MISTAKE MY PATIENCE. FOR WASTEFULNESS. OR A LACK OF DESIRE.”

  
  


A hot tongue of flame hits you straight through to your right hip, but you barely feel it. You barely feel anything at all. He could knife his hands between each rib and rip them apart from one another and you’d be none the wiser.

  
  


It’s warm. It’s _so warm. _Peaceful.

  
  


You used to be so afraid but now you feel like even the privilege of fear is something you do not deserve.

  
  


“IT IS SIMPLY RESTRAINT.”

  
  


You’re going to miss this. Once it all falls apart. Once it all goes to hell and you have nowhere left to hide.

  
  


The color drains from your vision. Even the green is sucked away, banished to the concept of nothingness you will always be unable to fathom. Then you cease seeing at all.

  
  


The water dives you into it. You take a walk through the woods with someone else steering, and wake up in your bed with an unknown ache sated, an ache you don’t think you were aware of until you met Caliborn.

  
  


Still, it hurts somewhere new when your room is empty of him until well beyond sunrise.

* * *

It’s hardly a week into Dave’s Ninth Grade year when he and Karkat have a huge fight that rocks the foundations of the Lalonde-Vantas households.

  
  


Naturally, you noodle your way to the Vantas’ doorstep a soon as possible to get up to date on all the hot goss.

  
  


“Jade confessed to Dave online, asked to start dating.” Kankri folds the laundry in a jittery fashion. It’s taken about a decade, but he finally lets you help, although he’ll only let you fold Karkat’s clothes and not his own. You seesaw between offended and grateful. “Dave said yes. Karkat’s devastated – apparently, he told Dave that he liked Jade?”

  
  


You nod. “They literally had the conversation right in front of me. Just like last time.”

  
  


Kankri looks scandalized. “Last time?”

  
  


“Terezi.”

  
  


You need not say anymore. Kankri closes his eyes and then glances up to the ceiling as if in brief prayer, which you think may be a bit of an over-reaction.

  
  


Then again, you were also witness to the way Karkat screamed over speakerphone to Dave, who sat on the couch in the living room with his arms hugging himself and something like a pout crossed with a grimace on his face, a scene you desperately wished you had not been included in.

  
  


After about ten straight minutes getting cussed out in such creative ways even you were beginning to feel hunted, Dave reached over and hung up the call without fanfare.

  
  


There was a blessed moment of silence.

  
  


Karkat called back immediately. Dave, bereft of any expression or body language, picked up on speakerphone once more.

  
  


“Thanks for giving up on me! That’s _exactly_ what I wanted!”

  
  


Karkat hung up. Dave went to his room and didn’t come back out.

  
  


“Dave hasn’t been acting right,” you confide as you fold probably the baggiest black sweatshirt you’ve ever seen. Definitely Karkat’s. “If I knew getting rejected one time when he was ten would lead to this, I would’ve… I got no clue. Preached abstinence until marriage or something heinous.”

  
  


Kankri gives you a dubious expression but appears to quickly get over it, which is great, because you aren’t sure if you have any defenses lined up on the subject of underage romance.

  
  


“Honestly, with how often those two fight, it’s a wonder they can stand each other anymore.”

  
  


You look over at Kankri in mild surprise. “That’s a bit pessimistic, coming from you.”

  
  


He sighs deeply, the maroon sweater getting bunched together in his fists. “I know.”

  
  


For a lack of better ideas, you rub at his back until he gets irritated at your ‘babying’ and waves you off. “It feels like he doesn’t trust me anymore. Either to talk to or to make the right decision. Honestly, I had one breakdown. One!”

  
  


He surprises you with how violently he rips off his over-shirt. It’s uncomfortably warm in here despite the AC supposedly being on, but you think his actions stem mostly from frustration compounded with the heat, and not the other way around.

  
  


“Isn’t that just a part of growing up?” You argue, abandoning the task of folding laundry as your host has. “Becoming independent. He feels like he shouldn’t weigh everything down on you anymore, like he can handle himself or, if he can’t, then he can spread his problems out amongst his friends.” You hesitantly touch his shoulder. He lets you, but doesn’t seem overly comforted. “Didn’t you keep some things from your dad?”

  
  


“Well, yes definitely, but once he was well and truly gone, I wish I hadn’t.” Kankri leans back into the couch, staring off. “I wish I’d told him so many things. I wish I’d told Cronus so many things I wouldn’t say because we were stupid and young and stupid young people just don’t say those sorts of things. After I took my celibacy vow, even our own friends kept telling us to give it up. Saying it mustn't have been real love if we weren’t ‘fucking.’” He looks over at you with an expression you don’t like on him. “I can’t believe I let it all get to my head.”

  
  


You shrug. “Sounds like something that’s meant for getting to your head. You can’t be blamed. Stupid and young, remember?”

  
  


He doesn’t look like he believes you.

  
  


You finish folding the rest of the laundry.

  
  


Kankri sinks into one of his slow moods where he isn’t quite so sad he’s unable to move, but is unnaturally quiet. In the months past Cronus’ discovered true fate, you’re continually surprised in how Kankri subverts any expectations you had of how he’d handle grief.

  
  


Apparently, something _can_ silence a Vantas. And that thing is called depression.

  
  


It’s not a pretty sight. You power through it, but it’s notable to you how he hasn’t reached to you for physical comfort since that last night you slept over. It leaves you feeling like you’ve gone and left an important piece of you behind. But it feels selfish to push, so you simply sit on the couch and watch him watch reality television with dead eyes that used to hold so much more.

  
  


You get kicked out an hour before Karkat is due back from his Beta Club meeting. You promptly head home.

  
  


About forty-five minutes later, twenty of those being the driveway alone, you pull the truck into its usual spot where the grass is permanently withered away from a lack of sun.

  
  


Dave’s sitting on his bench, tapping away at his phone. It’s not quite so late into the afternoon that all light is blocked from your house’s clearing, the amber color turning Dave a shade golden.

  
  


When he looks up and smiles faintly, only the barest traces of puffiness around his veiny red eyes, you feel relief deep in your chest.

  
  


“Hey.” You hop out of the truck and walk over. “You doin’ okay?”

  
  


“Sure,” says Dave. “Nothin’ like a li’l teen-aged drama to really make you feel alive.”

  
  


“Sure,” you unwittingly echo him with. “So… You and Jade, huh?”

  
  


Dave gives you a look that’s bordering on disgusted, or maybe exasperated. You’re somewhat appalled. Was he hoping you wouldn’t ask? “Hey, she asked me first. How can I say no to that? It’s not like I was unaffected by her charm,” he says this while dramatically sweeping his hair back over his scalp, “like Karkat seemed to think I was. He snoozed, he losed.”

  
  


“You –” _are allowed to say no,_ but you can’t finish the sentence for some reason. It feels too weighty for a conversation about e-dating. Feels like you’re accusing a little girl you’ve never properly met of something bad. “Whatever makes you happy. I’ll be meeting her soon, anyways. She better be as ‘charming’ as y’all make her out to be.”

  
  


“Yea?” Dave stands up in a hurry, looking a lot happier than he did a moment ago. “That still on? For real, man, I was kinda worried you’d like, forgotten, or hoped I’d drop it, because you haven’t said much about it lately? Like we don’t have to talk about it 24/7 or whatever, I was just… Hhf…” He cuts off with an awkward wheeze.

  
  


“It’s definitely still on,” you assure him, patting him on the back. He leans into you, turning it into a one-armed hug. “It’s just a bit more complicated than, say, asking Karkat and Terezi over. These kids might be your friends for years now, but their parents don’t know you or me. They’re harder to convince. It takes more time to set up.”

  
  


“Right. That makes sense.” He detaches, heading for the front door. It opens before he can touch it, something that he emits a high-pitched giggle at. It makes you nervous. “Sorry for acting like a huge baby about it, I dunno where that came from.”

  
  


“You weren’t acting like a ‘huge baby,’ you were worried. It’s okay – I wasn’t communicating my plans well in the first place.” You begin following him into the house.

  
  


Something stops you. Your gaze lists to the side.

  
  


Several of the morning glory buds have been crushed into the soft black dirt next to Dave’s bench, popped open and spilling pink that should long have been curled protectively away by this time of day.

  
  


Upon them rests the indentation of a shoe, caught and preserved in the sogginess from a morning drizzle. It’s too big to be Dave’s, but it’s definitely not the tread marks of your own shoes.

  
  


Slowly, your gaze roves the grounds until you spot what you can only understand to be fresh bike tracks off to the side of the driveway.

  
  


Ah. It seems somebody wasn’t informed that you were at Kankri’s, and that there was no need to make the valiant attempt to go crawling into anybody’s second story window.

  
  


“Bro?” Dave calls from the still open front door. “Everything cool? You see somethin’?”

  
  


“Nah.” You turn away from the subtle scene of the crime and head inside, placing a heavy hand on Dave’s head as you pass. “Just getting a good gander.”

  
  


Dave visibly quails for a short moment before standing tall again. “Nice, cool, schweet, kosher as fuck. Woods, yea, they sure are great. And safe. Mostly.”

  
  


From the couch, Caliborn obnoxiously waggles his eyebrows at you. Dave balks and stutters, still somehow clinging to the ruse that he has no clue what’s going on, but you simply pinch the bridge of your nose to stave off a sudden headache these kids are giving you.

  
  


“You were only partially right,” you concede once Dave retreats up to his room. “Dave technically didn’t climb the latticework.”

  
  


“BUT HIS LITTLE FRIEND DID.” Caliborn traps you against the counter, levitating the snack you were going for far away from you. “OR. WELL. ATTEMPTED TO.”

  
  


You get your snack back, but only after pretending to go limp first. The chips are a little crispier than you like. Cal laughs at you and steals one, tossing it into his mouth like it isn’t an actual furnace with too many sharp, golden teeth and a lolling snake of a forked tongue that leads not to a stomach, but to… you don’t know.

  
  


You’re so stunned that you forget to do anything else but sit there and stare.

  
  


Cal looks at you like even he doesn’t know where the food’s gone.

  
  


You both stare at where his digestive system could possibly be and waste a lot of time waiting for nothing to happen. And then you don’t mention it for the rest of the night.

  
  


By Saturday morning, Dave is acting like his fight with Karkat is water under the bridge. When you take him to Kankri’s, Karkat is acting much the same. They do homework on Karkat’s bed. They leave the door open.

  
  


You don’t think you and Kankri could share a more expressive ‘what the fuck? What the fuck??’ moment if you tried.

* * *

Despite last year’s doubt over Terezi ever having a birthday sleepover again, there’s one this year. Oh, and it’s going to be a joint birthday for both Terezi and Vriska, whose birthday isn’t even in October, but apparently is never celebrated on time. Or at all.

  
  


The more you hear about this girl, the increasing amount of worry you feel for her.

  
  


“It’ll be fine,” Dave feels the need to assure you as you’re already parked in front of Rosa’s house about to cast him out like a baby bird from the nest. “Probably. Terezi’s mom was already separating me n’ Kat from Terezi before me n’ her were dating, so we can barricade Terezi’s door until morning so Vriska can’t creep out and, like, feed us spiders in our sleep or whateverthefuck she planned on doing.”

  
  


He shrugs. You give him a blank look because you aren’t quite sure what the fuck to say to that.

  
  


You eventually settle on a quick forehead kiss and a, “Be good, don’t be stupid,” because Terezi has exited the house and is quickly advancing on the truck, barefoot and holding two cans of silly string which she is shaking with sheer amounts of glee you do not feel safe around.

  
  


She spritzes it. It misses by a mile and hits the equally patchy white stone bench in the small front yard. It nearly coats Karkat’s bike, propped up against the dilapidated fence.

  
  


“Did I hit it??”

  
  


Oh, fantastic. She really was aiming for your goddamn truck.

  
  


“Yea TZ you got it right in the window, Bro’s face is totally covered in,” he pauses to lean over and check the bench for what color silly string just got wildshotted, “yellow gooey stuff, augh, ugh, it’s so gross, he’s crying, he’ll never be the same.”

  
  


By the time you wise up and decide it’s best to leave them to it and drive away, Vriska’s poked her head out the door to shout, “Hurry up with our last victim, slowpoke! I’ve already got the hot sauce!!”

  
  


From the living room window, Karkat presses his face to the glass and appears to be pretending to be in great agony. That or he really is in agony and is doing it to warn Dave, who is casually strolling up to the front door acting like Terezi isn’t trying to spray a tower of yellow silly string on top of his head.

  
  


Yea, you don’t wanna know what they’re gonna do with that. You burn rubber.

  
  


It’s a long drive, or at least it feels like it. Before you’d left, Cal had been acting weird. Weirder than normal, anyways. In fact, he’d been like that all week, it seemed.

  
  


Kept asking you what you’d do if he disappeared one day. If the house was just a house, spook not included.

  
  


It had made Dave uncomfortable. You’d replied with variations of ‘beat my adoring fans off with a stick and buy a space heater’ for humorous affect, but only Cal would chuckle. The kind of jovial noise that meant he knew something you didn’t.

  
  


Either way, you can’t say you’re eager to get back home to finally ask Cal ‘what the fuck’ with Dave promised to the Maryam household for a day and a night, but you are anticipating something to be afoot.

  
  


Before you can properly turn down your long driveway, hidden nicely on a side-road that’s all curves and hills surrounded by even more trees, your phone rings.

  
  


You immediately pick it up, instantly worried about Vriska and her hot sauce or any other numerous things that could’ve gone wrong with a house full of birthday-high teenagers looked after by one chronically ill woman.

  
  


The screen reads ‘Hal.’

  
  


You immediately put it down, turning onto your driveway, where it quickly begins to lose signal and nobody can call you anyways.

  
  


By the time you pull up to the house, you’ve got a few texts from Hal. You bonk your forehead against the steering wheel. It squorks a _honk._

  
  


When you look up from your short pity-party, Cal is standing outside the house giving you a strange look and your phone is ringing again.

  
  


Forlornly, you hang your upper body out the window and give Cal the hand sign for ‘wait a minute.’

  
  


He sarcastically leans against nothing at all, looking at the watch he isn’t wearing because he’s ancient as fuck and probably really did wear a wrist watch once upon a time.

  
  


You roll your eyes. You answer your phone.

  
  


You expect to have to give an excuse as to why you didn’t answer as soon as he first called, but instead Hal starts what will no doubt be a calm, informative conversation with, “Not to be pushy, except I’m going to be: have you figured a time for me to come out yet?”

  
  


Jesus take the wheel and beat thy brother with it.

  
  


“I’m fucking working on it, hold your horses.”

  
  


“Neigh.” Hal snorts through the receiver either because he thinks he’s funny or because he thinks he can mimic a horse and still live to tell the tale. “But no, seriously, hurry up.”

  
  


You hand slaps the side of the truck in irritation. Its metal is still warm. “Why.”

  
  


“You won’t like this, and I’m probably a nincompoop for mentioning it at all, but someone from the Gravity Falls area was poking around. I can’t pinpoint them, and I had no clue they were even all up in my shit until an embarrassingly short amount of time ago, but if they were going to do something with the information they inevitably found then I’d figured they’d’ve done it by now.”

  
  


Abruptly, this mild October day feels cold. “How long ago.”

  
  


“Several years.”

  
  


“I thought you said you had it all under control,” comes out of you like a punch to the lungs.

  
  


Hal’s returning, “And I thought I did,” is defensive, lacking finesse, his robotic voice giving no indicators of anything but that of a soulless battering ram against your temple. “But I am not perfect. I am not an infallible AI that caters to your every need, much as I know that frustrates you. But like I said, I’d really rather be there with you. In case there’s fallout.”

  
  


A breeze pulls your voice from your throat.

  
  


“Aren’t you going to insinuate that it’s Dad?” Hal’s tone is devoid of any inflection marking this sentence as a question, but you know. You know him. “One of his buddies or whatever he called them?”

  
  


Even in the bright of morning, Caliborn’s staring can still unnerve you. He is no longer playing along.

  
  


You say nothing.

  
  


“Have you given up the farce at last? Or am I getting ahead of myself.”

  
  


You say, “Who cares.”

  
  


“...Excuse me?”

  
  


“I said who cares when you come barging in.” You scrub a hand across your mouth, yanking it away too late. “Do it already. I know you’re chomping at the bit, so who fucking cares.”

  
  


“I hate to say it, but I care. I care a whole lot, Dirk. In fact it’s disturbing to me to hear you giving up like this. Whether you’re going to pony up and believe it is not something that I can control.”

  
  


“Isn’t it.”

  
  


“Now you’re giving me too much credit.” Some noise you cannot pinpoint fuzzes across the line. “I wasn’t the one that started this.”

  
  


“Don’t.”

  
  


“I have to. I have to eventually.”

  
  


“_Don’t.”_

  
  


He sighs. “Why don’t you hang up now, Dirk.”

  
  


You blink. It hurts. “No.”

  
  


“You can do it. Just hang up. We don’t have to start this now. I’m… not ready to start this. I want to be there first.”

  
  


“I hate you.”

  
  


“...I know. Please hang up.”

  
  


You sit there. You can hear him breathing.

  
  


You hang up.

  
  


You lose time. Or perhaps it loses you, the way you slip in and out of reality like Dave letting a lightning bug crawl in and out between his fingers, gentle and giving. Letting it leave when it wants to. He’ll just catch another. He’ll never squash them.

  
  


Ironically, it’s the feeling of a bug crawling up your forearm that snaps you out of it.

  
  


You smack at yourself on autopilot, realizing too late that it’s not a bug, but Caliborn’s heated fingertip brushing the hairs of your arm. Your palm collides with him.

  
  


It’s not grounding, because there’s nothing truly solid about him, but it’s enough for you to look into his nightmare eyes and say, “It’ll all be over soon.”

  
  


Leaning close to the truck like a man and not a ghost, his transparent green visage confuses your brain. Still, you look. “IS THAT THE TRUTH? OR IS THAT YOUR WORRY?”

  
  


“Can’t it be both.” You turn the truck off and shove the door open, not caring to roll the windows up. You doubt it’ll rain tonight. “The waiting is what makes it both.”

  
  


“HMM.” Walking to the front door is almost too easy. “ARE YOU ENTIRELY CONVINCED. THAT IT WILL ‘ALL BE OVER.’ ONCE YOUR BROTHER COMES TO TOWN? IS THERE NOT A DIFFERENT ENDING?”

  
  


“I doubt it.” You shut the front door behind yourself. Cal appears in the kitchen between breaths. “Hal plans. He’s got something in mind.” You sit down on the couch. You feel unreal, the words spilling slowly but painlessly from your brain straight to your mouth without filter. “I’m just a pawn, in the end. I’ve always been…”

  
  


“SOMEONE ELSE’S PLAYTHING.” Cal comes up behind you, strong fingers working into the muscles of your neck. You are not tense – you are the opposite. “IT IS PITIFUL OF YOU TO ASSUME SUCH A ROLE. WITHOUT EVEN THE MOST CURSORY OF STRUGGLING.”

  
  


You hum. You decide not to bother explaining how the fight might have gone out of you a long time ago, in a forest like this one though impossibly different. How you snuffed it out on your own, either in self-defense or in self-sabotage.

  
  


“Can’t you take me under, big guy?” You ask lowly, closing your eyes against the too-brightness, the loudness of reality. “Then it can be your problem n’ not mine.”

  
  


“BUT ONLY FOR AN HOUR.”

  
  


“Might not need a full hour,” you mumble pessimistically.

  
  


The kneading hands pause. “WHAT IF.” He doesn’t finish his sentence.

  
  


You twist around onto your knees on the cushion, balancing there like a child looking back on the bus. “What if…?”

  
  


The mere expression of his skull-like face has you feeling anticipatory, like something about this isn’t new to you. Something about this you’ve seen coming. Perhaps not consciously.

  
  


You are eager.

  
  


“WHAT IF IT COULD BE MORE THAN ONE HOUR?” He takes his hands and puts them on your shoulders, applying pressure until you’re forced to either let yourself be pushed to the floor or stand up. Naturally, you stand up – you’re not so far gone and limp yet. “WHAT IF IT COULD BE. MORE THAN SIMPLY OUR HOUSE?”

  
  


You want to simper and ask, ‘What do you mean?’ but you’re not actually a fucking idiot, and also it’s hard to breathe with him bending you over backwards against the stair railing like this. You merely look up into his eyes with an expression you are not in control of.

  
  


“WHAT IF IT WERE MORE THAN. TEMPORARILY BINDING? IF I OFFERED YOU THE INFORMATION YOU SEEK?” His devil’s tongue lolls out, practically scorching your cheek. You full-body flinch away from the feeling of more than only his hands gripping you, holding your feet to the floor with slithering bodies, twining up your waist to meld you to the very wood of the banister. His claws dig into the bone. “IF I CAN ALLOW YOU. TRUE PROTECTION. TRUE HOME. TRUE SAFETY. FROM PAST. PRESENT. AND FUTURE.”

  
  


Too many sensations overwhelm you. Something with teeth pinches the back of your neck sharply, but you aren’t entirely positive that it’s not imaginary.

  
  


Cal backs off, but barely. Your body sags dramatically, letting you become aware that he was the sole force holding you up.

  
  


You look down at your feet. There’s nothing there.

  
  


You acknowledge that you are confused and overwhelmed. You choose to ignore the warning signs.

  
  


“ALTHOUGH YOU FEAR YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT. YOU NEED NOT ANSWER NOW.” Caliborn heads for the stairs, walking up them in a way that tricks your brain into, once again, imagining the sound and vibration of footsteps that do not actually exist. You physically shake yourself. “YOU MAY FIND GENEROSITY IN ME UPON OCCASION.”

  
  


“I’m sure that’s exactly what this is,” you breathe out, like speaking any louder is going to strike this interaction from the face of the earth. “As vague and swoonerific as your proposal is, you had better not be taking me to bed, _hombre._ It’s barely eleven in the morning – I’m not tired.”

  
  


“PERISH THE IDEA. THAT I DO TO YOU WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT.” At the landing, he holds one hand in the air. It feels like a significant gesture. “I HAVE SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU. THAT I THINK WILL BE WELL WORTH YOUR TIME. AND ATTENTION.”

  
  


Before you can make it all the way past the last step, a trap door abruptly exists on the ceiling between your bedroom door and the bathroom.

  
  


You halt.

  
  


That definitely was not there before.

  
  


While you’re too busy openly gaping at the trap door sliding open, a rickety looking ladder descending without fanfare, Caliborn disappears from sight.

  
  


Without being prompted, you begin to climb the ladder. Contradictory to its appearance, it holds your weight.

  
  


When you breach the threshold between hallway and what you can only interpret as the hidden attic, you quickly realize that the room extends well above your own bedroom.

  
  


Huh. Well, that’s one mystery solved. Not that you were actively trying to solve why the rain was never as loud in your room as any other’s, or why Caliborn had a favorite spot to stand, but here is your solution.

  
  


“Is this where you go?” You ask the empty, dank room. It has little light beyond some ambient beams that you cannot yet identify the source of. You hesitate in crawling all of the way in. Not without your ghostly guide. “When you aren’t around. When you’re tired.”

  
  


“That is one way to look at it, yes.”

  
  


You’re so busy freaking out about the new voice that you’re entirely pliable as a force drags you up out of the floor-door and deposits you a few feet away most ungently. You can hear the trap door slap shut behind you.

  
  


Hahahahahaha, fuck.

  
  


“Cal?” You ask at nearly a whisper. The stagnant, dusty air attempts to choke you. “...Is that you?”

  
  


“Who else would it be? Dave? I think not.”

  
  


Something yanks an unseen fabric away from the wall. Light floods the room from a small, round window of faded stained glass.

  
  


A man sits on his knees across the room from you, his height barely contained by the short, slanted ceiling. Every wall is a brown wood, blocked only by the sheer amount of dusty, badly-kept _stuff_ crowding the space – books not on shelves, furniture deteriorated to uselessness, clothes and blankets and curtains unconstrained, all spilling about with nary any floor space beyond the bare center.

  
  


Your vision wavers. It annoys you, the way you have to blink rapidly before the person in front of you begins to make sense.

  
  


Caliborn is a man. He’s in a deep maroon suit with a dark green tie, all classy and colorful. It tickles your memory, but it’s dashed upon the splintery floor as you take in his face. His true face.

  
  


He’s as pale as Dave combined with strong features, boasting a thick nose at the end of a frequently broken bridge. His hair is a shock of curly ginger. His eyes are not red, but dark brown. Or black, now that you’ve stared at him for a seriously inappropriate amount of time.

  
  


Eyes so dark the iris fuses with the pupil, casting him a permanently inscrutable expression.

  
  


When Cal smiles, it’s not the horrifying grin of a skeleton-man with too many teeth, but that of someone holding coquettish humor behind full, perfectly human lips.

  
  


You blink as an excuse to look away.

  
  


“You’re not normally one to be shy,” says Caliborn in an even tone, a normal voice that does not induce ear aches or brain rot. “What’s wrong, Dirk? Cat got your tongue?”

  
  


You unwittingly lick your lips as you gaze down at a dusty, cracked cue ball near your foot where you’re sat. “Why am I up here. Why bring me up here. What is all this.”

  
  


With the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, you understand intimately that he is a tricky man. “Is this not information that you seek?” He reaches out his normal, fleshy hand and grabs something underneath what may be a tarp, may also be a very old moth-eaten blanket. “Memories, old things, dust mites and bones. Photo albums and illegal spirits. You can’t tell me this is not exactly as distracting as it is meant to be.”

  
  


You can barely catch the bottle when he lobs it at you. You try to parse the label despite never having done that before on a bottle of alcohol. It’s unreadable.

  
  


“So you brought me up here to reminisce, huh.” You consider popping the cork for a hot second, but dismiss the urge. You’re not one to drink, after all. The bottle goes back to the floor.

  
  


“Perhaps,” Cal responds ambivalently. “Or perhaps it’s more of a softened warning. Made only for you.”

  
  


“What –” The bastard tosses another something at you. It’s a tightly bound journal, barely larger than your hand.

  
  


“Drink up.” Cal does not clarify if he means for you to literally drink the old ass booze lying around or if he means it in a metaphorical sense, as in to drink up information. “Whether you accept or not, this will all be yours for the rest of your natural life. Or unnatural.”

  
  


Thumbing at the edge of the book, you side-eye him.

  
  


With his white face, he merely smiles at you. It is not benign, but neither is outright offensive in nature.

  
  


Deciding to play along for now, your spook acting unnaturally patient today, you unlatch the clasp. Several poufs of dust erupt when you open to a random page.

  
  


It’s a handmade ancestry book, it seems. It’s in a script you can hardly read – not like you were taught cursive beyond second grade or anything – but some words are recognizable enough that, through the mini-heart attack you’re given, you begin to piece them together anyways.

  
  


English. The majority of the people here are married into or born into the English Family. Hurriedly, you flip pages back and forth, but whoever was recording this seems to have stopped sometime in the mid-1900s, going by the dates and the abrupt cutoff.

  
  


“I’ll be damned…” You find yourself breathing in genuine awe. “If you ain’t related to my ex-boyfriend I’ll eat my own heart out.”

  
  


“**WHAT?”**

  
  


His voice changes so suddenly that you look up in fear. Whatever green he was showing at his little outburst is quickly hidden away again by his human disguise. Either way, his expression does not spell out happiness.

  
  


“Don’t Hulk out on me now,” you attempt to tease. “’English’ might be a common last name these days.”

  
  


He mouths the words ‘hulk out’ with frustrated confusion. “It is not common. It is a birthright.” His face turns towards a scowl. “It used to be, anyhow.”

  
  


“So I used to date an English,” you say almost flippantly despite the hard clench of your heart, “Big deal. Didn’t marry him. Kept my Macbethian name.”

  
  


“Not Hamlet?” Smarms Caliborn.

  
  


You laugh. It’s not a nice laugh – it’s the kind that gets twisted somewhere between the lungs and the vocal chords, threatens to make you too aware, too afraid.

  
  


It is shoved away for another time.

  
  


“Right…” You trace the elegant letters with your fingers, trying to make better sense of them. Trying to find answers. “It’s not like this family tree goes all the way to the twenty-first century. Can’t try and find him on this.”

  
  


But you do find a familiar name hidden amongst the more diary-like entries after each updated version of the intricately drawn trees.

  
  


Jade Harley. Adopted sometime in the 1930s, most unofficially going by the confused timeline, by the matriarch of a minor branch of the English family at the time, Constance English. Became Jade English. Mother to a boy and girl, yet to be named.

  
  


You fill in the blanks. Grandmother to…

  
  


The journal floats out of your hands and into Caliborn’s.

  
  


You raise an eyebrow, but let it go. “Thought you said somethin’ about this all being mine.”

  
  


“And I thought you were running out of time,” replies Cal in a paced tone that suggests violence. “There’s more interesting knickknacks to peruse. I’m sure my entire life laid out before you cannot possibly be trumped by one journal about people who are dead, and gone.”

  
  


You hum. “Yet you yourself are dead. But not gone.”

  
  


He smiles at you. Always with the smiling. “Wouldn’t you like to find out.”

  
  


Almost as if in challenge, you reach as far as you can go without getting up, snagging a large book partially hidden underneath fabric scraps of what may have once been a black suit.

  
  


Caliborn does not stop you, but does not comment, either.

  
  


You open it up, dust causing you to sneeze at least twice before you get a hold of yourself.

  
  


It’s a photo album.

  
  


There aren’t as many pictures in it as you’d expect, but it does appear to be of only one photo in general, repeated over the years.

  
  


You get to see baby Caliborn, at least.

  
  


And his sister.

  
  


It’s a family photo.

  
  


There’s two babies in this first picture, along with a man and a woman. The man is holding one, the woman the other. You can’t tell who is who, but the writing at the bottom states that this photo was taken in 1902. From left to right is Lord English, Caliborn English, Calamity English, and Calliope English.

  
  


“Did all y’all get a code name once you joined the family or was your momma seriously named ‘Calamity?’” You can’t help but ask, running a finger over the faded sepia tone of Caliborn’s tiny, pudgy face.

  
  


“Only those in the main family would change their names should they marry in,” informs Caliborn helpfully, “but I had the fortune of being born into mine.”

  
  


“Along with your sister.”

  
  


Caliborn does not respond.

  
  


You turn the page. It’s much the same – the man mysteriously named only ‘Lord English’ is a huge one, looking pale grey in the colorless photo, features thin and cruel with closely shaven hair that you do not know the shade of, but are going to assume is a lurid orange. The mother, on the other hand, has dark black skin and a kind smile, her hair protected with a lightly colored scarf.

  
  


The babies are twins going by their matched ages. They grow identically as you clinically flip through the years, taking them in with a detached sense you fight to maintain while one of those babies, grown and expired by apparently over a hundred years, watches you without pause.

  
  


Calliope has a Disney-esque smile with skin much like her mother’s and what appears to be coily white-blonde hair. She looks like a character. You bet Jane and Roxy would’ve surely gotten along with her. Caliborn, on the other hand, looks consistently washed out and as unhappy as a child can possibly be while posing for a family photo. In fact, if you didn’t have him sitting in front of you right now, you’d find his past self unremarkable.

  
  


He was just some moody runt; Calliope quickly outstrips him in height when their teens hit sometime in 1915, her smile genuine and her suit snappy.

  
  


And then their mother stops appearing in the photos.

  
  


Calliope is still smiling, but it’s subdued. She wears formal dresses. They don’t suit her. Caliborn and his father have not smiled once.

  
  


In 1918, Calliope stops smiling. Caliborn is the tallest, bar their looming father.

  
  


1925\. Calliope no longer appears in the photos. Caliborn is a fully-grown man. His father is a shadow who only seems taller, wider than before.

  
  


1926\. A crow in a cage appears at Caliborn’s feet. Caliborn is smiling, though ruefully, thinly. The father is now sitting down.

  
  


1931\. Caliborn is alone.

  
  


1932 is the last photo. It’s of only Caliborn, but the writing at the bottom names him ‘Lord English’ for the first and last time. On his arm perches the crow that used to be in a cage.

  
  


Even through the colorless still life, you can practically see the red in those beady black eyes.

  
  


You choke with something that tastes a lot like horror, but goes down like the solid weight of unwanted sorrow.

  
  


“So, your sister…” you stiltedly hedge. “What happened to her after –”

  
  


“I don’t want to talk about her.” His voice is hard to get used to – it’s a lot lighter than it was before, more nasally, and he’s got an accent that you cannot place that might as well have been lost to time well before Dave was born. “She got what she deserved, what she desired. It was no fault of mine.”

  
  


You look down at the crow. It feels like it’s looking directly back at you, accusing you of years of thoughtlessly following the whims of someone else.

  
  


You close the album and put it back where it was previously hidden.

  
  


“And your dad?”

  
  


The grin Caliborn breaks out into is much more like home, like uncovered mysteries and of a burning sensation you’ve long gotten used to. “Now, him, his fate, was certainly a fault of mine. Again, entirely deserved.”

  
  


At this, he stands up, though it appears like he hardly fits. He walks to the small window, going through the motions of looking out despite how smoggy and ruined it is, yellowed and cracked.

  
  


Absently, you wonder how you never noticed it from the outside before.

  
  


In the melancholy silence, you look around the room, for all there isn’t much to see. You imagine your poltergeist sliding his way up here like a fourth-dimensional being exiting to another plane of existence, and yet you also imagine him lounging on his back and tossing around a few cue balls to stave off boredom. Of him fuming in bodiless purgatory after you’d pissed him off.

  
  


“You ever bring any of your other house guests up here before?” You stand up as well, which isn’t as much of a hazard for you as it is for him. Though you guess a dead guy with arguable tangibility doesn’t have to worry about bonking his head on the ceiling if he doesn’t want to. “I know I’ve been the only bee in your bonnet for the past ten years, but that says nothing of the previous tenants.”

  
  


“You are concerned?” Caliborn doesn’t turn around.

  
  


“It feels a bit gauche to remind you about all the shit those people left lying around when I first got here,” you say in a tone that you hope does not beget anything close to jealousy.

  
  


“They were not you. They were not us.” He reaches a hand into his pocket and pulls something out. It’s a watch. You can’t see if it actually tells time. “You are the only for some time. Of my family, however, there have been many who were once allowed entry to this entire home. Long before.”

  
  


He pivots on his heel, his shoes a shiny black despite being attached to a man whose body may be six feet under and rotted somewhere else, and comes at you, his face a melting pot of flesh and green poison, his eyes no longer a soft earthly color but quickly gaining that of a horrible glow, like cigarette butts failing to be put out on a child’s skin.

  
  


You take instinctive steps back until you realize you can’t go any further. The space is simply too small for you and him both.

  
  


“FOR YOU SEE. BEYOND THE BOOTLEGGING.” He shoves you down, and you go with a gasp, elbows buried into the detritus like soggy dough, like you’ve never seen him like this before. To be fair, you have never seen his bones melt into his flesh, eating away at his clothing, his humanity, until he reminds you of the devil you always saw in him. “WE WERE A FAMILY WITH SECRETS. A FAMILY OF LOYALTY. OF RULES AND REGULATIONS. TO KEEP DISSENTERS. AT BAY. AND TRAITORS. AT HEEL.”

  
  


“A gang,” you choke out. Literally. The dust of colliding with all this stuff is making it hard to breathe or see.

  
  


“EXCELLENT.” Caliborn sibilates like you’ve answered a difficult question. It’s somewhat insulting. “I HOPE YOUR MEMORY HAS NOT LEFT YOU DEPRIVED. AND YOU RECALL A TIME I BOASTED YOUR TRAITS. YOUR HARD-WON SKILLS. AS THAT OF A HITMAN. WHOM I SOUGHT TO EXPLOIT.”

  
  


You lean yourself back into the semi-soft mass as Caliborn bears down over you, coming so close that you cannot see the sun or the dust motes, but only his green light and his roving gaze that you find hard to meet not because he scares you, but because you’re scaring yourself. “Hard to forget.”

  
  


“I REALIZE, TOO LATE ON MY PART, THAT I SEEK NOT TO WASTE YOU. UPON VIOLENCE. UPON DOGFIGHTS AND BODY COUNTS.” His hand, no longer fleshy or whole, comes down to lightly brush against your cheek. It feels so weighted with things yet to be said that you have to turn away. “BUT I SEEK TO PROTECT YOU. FULLY. EVERY FACET OF YOU. THAT YOU WISH TO BREAK AWAY FROM. I DESIRE TO COVET IT. FOR ALL TIME WILL ALLOW ME.”

  
  


You don’t know what to say to that. Your mouth flaps open but you’re distracted by the crawling, slithering feeling working its way up your legs, like your imagination is trying to come upon you slowly so as to avoid detection.

  
  


“OUR BOND.” Caliborn sighs out scalding hot air that invades your lungs. You open your mouth but nothing comes out because you’re too busy choking down specter particles. “IT WANTS TO BE UNBREAKABLE. CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT?”

  
  


“I don’t know,” you breathe, more of a wheeze than anything, tears pricking at the back of your eyes in overwhelming amounts, “I don’t know what it feels like.”

  
  


“THEN I WILL HELP YOU TO.”

  
  


Remorselessly, he sinks you into the water without asking for permission first.

  
  


You’re so startled that you have no time to anchor yourself. In less than a moment, you are nothing. You are no one. You are bereft of any understanding of who you are, what you are doing, or what you have done.

  
  


Just as quickly, you are yanked back out.

  
  


You’re crying. You can’t stop crying, you can barely breathe through it.

  
  


“I. GOT AHEAD OF MYSELF.”

  
  


You feel him pulling away but your horrible, grabbing hands seek him out, flailing in the air madly until they make contact with the warmth, the heat, and you feel immeasurable relief forcing him back to you.

  
  


“_Yes, _yes of course I want to,” You bite out, so angry that it hurts, so sad that it makes you angry, a cycle of self-destruction that you are slapping down into a ghost’s lap and demanding that he do something about. “It’s practically Pavlovian, don’t act like you don’t understand what you do when you ask for permission, or wait for me to ask first!”

  
  


Vindictive pleasure overcomes you when you see the surprise blatantly written upon his features.

  
  


“IT WILL HURT.” Caliborn is revealing himself too candidly. It’s odd, for him, but then again, it isn’t. You’ve come to understand him as much simpler than you once assumed. “IT WILL LEAVE YOU NEVER FEELING THE SAME AS BEFORE. YOU WILL BE CHANGED. SHIFTED. IRREVOCABLY. AS WILL I. THOUGH I AM MORE THAN PREPARED FOR THIS.”

  
  


“I deserve it.” You kick your legs, squirming, trying to get rid of the slithering you know is not truly physical. Caliborn holds you down. You hate how grateful you are for it. “Fuck it, I deserve it. Just do it, dammit, do it already. You’re no idiot and neither am I – you’ve been building up to this for years. How long? Since I came here? Since Dave did? Since you first sunk inside my brain and used me like a doll?”

  
  


But he merely blinks at you. “WHY DO YOU DESERVE IT?”

  
  


Whatever you were about to respond, most likely an embarrassing form of begging, is overshadowed within an instant.

  
  


All you can think of is the look on Dad’s face when he grabbed your wrists to try and stop you. Sometimes you still expect those hand print-shaped bruises to be there, and when they’re not, it’s all the easier to pretend like it never happened.

  
  


You shake your head roughly. Caliborn stops that, too.

  
  


“I don’t wanna think about it,” you try to tell him, “make me not think about it, c’mon.”

  
  


“IS THAT WHAT YOU DESIRE? TO SPEND YOUR WHOLE LIFE PRETENDING LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED?”

  
  


You let out a frustrated noise. “Maybe it is. Maybe it’s the only way.” You kick at him, try to headbutt him, fight like your life depends on it, but to no avail. “Why do you insist on stalling now that I’m right here? I said yes! Just go, just do it, I’m ready! _Fuck!”_

  
  


“I KNOW YOU.” This stops you again. You go tense, still and uncomfortable, head pointed as far away as the mess you lay on will allow you. “I KNOW YOU SOUGHT VIOLENCE. CHILDHOOD EXTENDS MUCH FARTHER THAN MOST ACKNOWLEDGE. ADOLESCENTS ARE DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH. THERE IS PRESSURE, AND HEAT, AND THEN THEY ARE MOLDED UNDERNEATH IT. YOU WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER SHAPE THAN WHAT YOU WERE CREATED TO BE.

  
  


“BUT I CAN HELP YOU.”

  
  


You close your eyes, your body a prison of sensory input you cannot parse, but your mind may as well be a haven in return, if a distorted one.

  
  


You sought violence. Deep down, you know that you still yet seek violence. But of a different sort.

  
  


“When I was sixteen I was gettin’ paid to hurt people.” Your eyes stay closed, head bowed low and apart, for admitting this even while understanding Caliborn already knows it is painful beyond words. “Thought I was shapin’ up. Thought that was what bein’ strong was all about, was fightin’ back. Thought it was about that stiff upper lip, didn’t even ask who was who or what was what. I didn’t want justice, I just wanted…”

  
  


Caliborn pulls back, no longer holding you down. You let him go without having a fucking tantrum this time. “VIOLENCE. HURT.”

  
  


You sought _violence._

  
  


You seek hurt.

  
  


Whether its your want or his brain that makes your fluttery, sweaty hand seek out the neck of the nearest bottle, a journey made in darkness and with fingertips brushing up against numerous oddities you cannot see before finding its goal, it doesn’t matter. It’s the closest hurt you can think of that isn’t fire itself, and you’re going to take it.

  
  


Uncorking it from your position is a bitch, drinking without spilling even moreso. It burns all the way down into your stomach, where it sits like lead and simmers.

  
  


Opening your eyes is easier. It might only be a placebo effect – you can’t imagine getting drunk instantly off of one belly full – but it is called an effect for a reason.

  
  


He sits much like his human doppelganger did earlier, on his knees, hands placed openly in his lap. You focus on those hands, comparing them to his eyes. They both look guilty in different ways, but the connection is there.

  
  


You don’t want to hold those hands or meet those eyes, but the connection is impossibly there.

  
  


Guilt is like swallowing a rock. It sinks down, diverging from your esophagus into your veins until it bullies your heart out of place. Usurps its old function, and starts a new one. It’s a hard part knocking about all of your ribs and causing calamitous pain as you stand there and wait for somebody, anybody to notice, and yet they fail to do so time and time again.

  
  


Guilt is a silent scream.

  
  


In his eyes is a similar story.

  
  


“I KNOW YOU. YOU WANT HURT, YOU WANT PENITENCE.”

  
  


“But I don’t know you,” you admit. “A couple of photos, some old moonshine… It ain’t enough.”

  
  


“WOULD YOU WANT TO?” He reaches over. He thumbs a thin stream of alcohol away from your lips, evaporating it into something olfactory.

  
  


It feels weighty, the way you say, “Yes.”

  
  


“IF GIVEN THE CHANCE, WOULD YOU KNOW ME?”

  
  


You find it hard to breathe, and to say it again, but you do. “Yes.”

  
  


“YOU WILL NOT FIND PENITENCE FROM A BOTTLE. THAT IS NOT WHO YOU ARE, DIRK STRIDER.”

  
  


You discard the bottle somewhere behind your head as you sit up, scooting forward until you’re grinding the skin of your knees into the hard wooden floor. It lets out a creak.

  
  


“Then show me what true penitence is,” you whisper as you look up at him imploringly, your nose nearly touching his chin, his eyes too close to see anything else. “Come get some of the sickness in me. Get it out. I’m not goin’ anywhere, Cal, I’m right here, I’m right the fuck here –”

  
  


When he sinks you down into the water, it goes slow. So slow. Slower than ever before, so much so that you can feel it when you lose traction, when you need him to hold you up with his hands so that you don’t bow backwards like a cut-string marionette being lowered down onto stage.

  
  


Here, you have nowhere to put your anticipation. Your anxiety. Your doubts, your logic, your fear. You only have you as a base, and you are never to be trusted with simple tasks involving desire and maintenance of your general well-being in denying those desires.

  
  


An eon later, you can tell on some innate sense that you cannot go any lower. That you are as basic as you can get, and yet also alone. You think someone is waiting for you to make a decision, but that you have to do it alone.

  
  


In the fathomable nothingness, you know there is you. You as a heart, or perhaps as a soul. Sensation and thought do not exist here, but you know your way around the vacuum. You know where the pieces of you lie. You know how vulnerable they are.

  
  


You know Caliborn won’t do it for you. He cannot. That’s fine by you – he has given you the bridge to do what you were always meant to.

  
  


This time, you break you yourself. A million tiny splinters is what you become.

  
  


It’s not like the other times, that much is immediately, horrifyingly clear.

  
  


You writhe uncontrollably against the hard floorboards, hands grasping for comfort and finding none, filling up with splinters and pins and needles. Your hip flares like a bomb has gone off under your skin, but it doesn’t linger this time, spreading outwards into your nerves until the entire right-half of you feels like it’s on fire, like someone’s splitting you down the middle – one part chilled and numb, one part lit aflame.

  
  


You must cry out – how could you not – but you can’t tell if you’re begging for help or if you’re simply sobbing like a child, or like a tortured animal trapped under the wheel of a car owned by an uncaring human. You desperately beat the back of your head against the floor in an attempt to make yourself pass out, but something stops you, a physical barrier that is softer than wood. You try to scream something, profanity or perhaps invocation of some god’s name, but then you begin to choke on nothing.

  
  


No, not nothing – there’s a subliminal hissing sound that echoes down your own throat, not coming from yourself but from the nothing trying to slither down inside of you, or up from outside of you, you can’t tell. You left hand hits something and you scrabble at it, fingers claws, for all humans were once bipedal omnivores built for survival. Your right hand pets at the air limply.

  
  


Your empty cavity of a chest begins to feel full, then overfull, as if your ribs are about to crack and leave you for someplace much more spacious. The hissing, slithering, feeling thing steals your breath away, curling up in your lungs, stomach, intestines from within-without, not so much coming inside as it does elongate from the outside-in. Your eyes squint in the darkness and all you can see are watery tears laid overtop.

  
  


You no longer writhe as your muscles have gone too taut to move, wire strong and electric like a power line as you bow upwards painfully. Your left heel has splinters in it and your right feels charred away to the bone, and for all you attempted to hurt yourself unconscious earlier, your head continues to be pillowed by something spongy and cloth-like.

  
  


You have to get control of yourself – you cannot be this primal lost thing, with the loose joints and the rolling white eyes, seeking fingertips into warmth that is not yours to sink into. It will not provide. It will not stay. Not for you.

  
  


You love this, crave this – why shouldn't you abate to this? Your downfall is at hand and you are a contributor thus. You lean in and take what he gives you. You deserve whatever fate befalls you for this.

  
  


Dropping into the still water garners no ripples – it is abrupt, dead weight, like a droplet falling back into uniformity.

  
  


You were meant to be in this water. You are accepted without contest, now entirely indistinguishable from the depthlessness. You don’t stand out. You are only a single part of a greater whole, after all.

  
  


Everything is so green.

  
  


The sunset disappears below the horizon.

  
  


You are so full and warm.

* * *

The morning light coming through the musty attic window makes you realize that you are awake, though for how long escapes you.

  
  


You have a hard time feeling yourself as a body. You cease trying. At least nothing hurts, though the lack of pain overall would be worrying to a you who is not present right now.

  
  


Bits and pieces of you break themselves away like victims fleeing from arson. A veritable splinter of you, who you are to your very core, rests in him. And in you, a splinter of Caliborn tethers you down to the very plot of land you call your home.

  
  


The burden of him feels so light – you didn’t expect this. You expected it to be like being tainted by something foreign, a bacterial contamination. A red hot brand into the skin. A virus.

  
  


You expected him to be exactly what you deserve.

  
  


But, no. Having him fill that sliver he once carved empty feels only of home.

  
  


It doesn’t hurt. You wish it did. You wish you’d feel worse about it than you do, but you don’t, and that scares you. How much you want it now that you’ve got it.

  
  


You think you might need help but you don’t want help.

  
  


Booting up your phone, which is at a very low battery percentage, you text Dave and tell him to go to Kankri’s with Karkat. You tell him that you’re sick. You tell him that you don’t want him getting sick, too.

  
  


Whatever he texts back, and whatever unread messages from Hal await you, you don’t see it. You stare at your background – a picture of Dave sitting on the steps of the Gravity Falls Library, his own phone in his hands as he takes a selfie – until it locks itself after a short amount of time, in which you stare at your lockscreen – a selfie of yourself and Kankri by the pool. In the background, Vriska and Karkat look like they’re about to engage in combat.

  
  


Your phone runs out of battery, dying. You put it down.

  
  


You stand up and walk to the window, your body feeling simultaneously light and airy yet also heavier than it has ever been.

  
  


Something’s different. Something will never be the same. You were warned of this. You accepted it anyways.

  
  


You want to kill your past self.

  
  


You are too full. You are too warm.

  
  


You’ve done terrible things in your life.

  
  


You want to _kill_ your past self.

  
  


In the reflection of the glass is you.

  
  


Is this one of those terrible things?

  
  


A hot, comforting hand holds your shoulder, your reflection no longer alone, and you decide that you haven’t decided yet.

* * *

It’s December third of 2029, Dave’s fourteenth birthday.

  
  


You’re not quite sure where the months went. But you think you have a pretty good guess.

  
  


Dave wants to go on a hike.

  
  


Caliborn requests to go along.

  
  


“Not yet.” What you say borders on a plead. You don’t know how it got that way, but it scares you deeply. You stop in your task of spreading strawberry jam on bread and lean onto the counter, a sense of weakness overcoming you.

  
  


“HUSH.” You hush. It actually works, like a balm to a burn wound. Somehow, that’s even scarier, but the feeling leaves you faster than you can find the logic to grasp it, hold it still. “I UNDERSTAND. I MERELY THOUGHT TO ASK.”

  
  


You nod to Cal, straightening up. He moves away in time for Dave to come downstairs, dressed in his new cheery yellow winter coat with the pink buttons. He liked it because he said it reminded him of strawberry-banana ice cream.

  
  


“Ready to go?” You ask with a frightening amount of normality.

  
  


Dave leaps off of the last step and lands on a stomp. “Hell yea I am, I mean, look at me.” He strikes a few poses.

  
  


Only somewhat sarcastically, you clap. “Since you have nothing to do, get over here and help me make these sandwiches.”

  
  


“Agh, where in the world have the birthday boy privileges gone,” mumbles Dave, but he does plod over in is big snow boots quickly, yeeting his gloves somewhere onto the couch before getting out another two slices of bread.

  
  


To the side of you, Caliborn takes graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate squares into his hands. He melts them slowly.

  
  


“Fuck yea.” Dave reaches around you and grabs at the one Cal just finished. “Please just one, c’mon, I’ll be good or whatever, I won’t say a single cuss word all day.”

  
  


“As if I care about that.” You can tell when Cal gives in and hands it over to Dave because Dave starts making obnoxiously overblown chewing noises as soon as he gets it in his mouth. “Don’t forget to wipe your face off before we go out, you fuckin’ sugar monster. It’ll all freeze to your face.”

  
  


Dancing to the edge of the kitchen like you’re going to take his half-eaten smorgasbord away from him, Dave flips you off.

  
  


“THAT IS NOT VERY POLITE.”

  
  


Dave squeals as the goo and cracker floats out of his hand. “Nooo, I’m sorry!”

  
  


You sigh as Dave nearly trips and smacks his head into the counter from how wildly he’s chasing the flying treat around. “Let him have it. He’ll get his punishment a few months from now when he goes to the dentist and has another cavity.”

  
  


The s’mores drops into Dave’s waiting paws. He immediately starts munching on it again, only goes to hide by the fireplace while he does it.

  
  


A hand runs up your back, coming to grip at the hairs on your nape before letting go. You sigh deeply in something like comfort.

  
  


Leaving is somewhat awkward.

  
  


“Bro? Aren’t you gonna put uh, more on?”

  
  


You shrug your simple tartan jacket on over a thermal shirt. “Nah, think I’ll be good.”

  
  


Dave gives you an odd look. “But you’re basically always cold? You told me it was because you got too many sunburns as a kid and you’d never be able to handle anything lower than the fifties. Are you sure?”

  
  


“Maybe I’ve finally gotten used to it.” He doesn’t seem convinced, so you walk over and run your hand through his hair, which never fails to make him duck his head and smile at least a little bit. “Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself.”

  
  


Stepping outside yields the feeling of someone with warm hands holding a portion of your heart close. You do not shiver. You feel perfectly toasty. The door shuts behind you without you needing to turn around and do it yourself.

  
  


Snowman Jr Infinity (you both stopped pretending to be keeping count one Snowman Jr ago) stands to the left of the house near the Sittin’ Boulder. It stares at the both of you with eyes made out of unripe crab apples previously kept frozen in the fridge for several months.

  
  


You’d had to talk Dave down from naming the thing ‘Snow-Jade’ because, for once, you felt the need to step in and prevent him from grievously embarrassing his future self. He was pouty and kept trying to argue you around, but he’ll thank you some day.

  
  


You have him walk the same paths as before. It’s a diversion from the new spot you know of, though you also know that it’ll be a pain in the ass to get the red wagon with the picnic supplies inside up to it.

  
  


Still, the expression on Dave’s face is worth it.

  
  


“I had no idea there was this tall of a hill out here!” He exclaims as he stands on top of the cropped rock formation, the top nearly bald of tall trees aside from a few sturdy shrubs.

  
  


From where you’re trying to finagle the wagon up several lower rocks without spilling shit everywhere, you grin up at him. “Cal told me about it. I thought it was too dangerous before but, well, now you’re not a little dumbass anymore. Thought it’d be fun.”

  
  


“Nah I’m a medium dumbass now.” Dave decides to hop down and help you get the wagon to the top. He finds a few rocks to place under the wheels so that it doesn’t roll away. “Or I mean that’s what Jade tells me, lmao.”

  
  


When you settle down on the least painful rock you can find, Dave practically shoves his phone in your face. On the screen is a girl with bright brown skin that's a little red from what must be sun burn, and long curly dark hair. She’s smiling like it’s all she’s ever done. Her eyes are almost as obviously green as the actual apples were – you have to give Dave credit where credit is due. Her outfit reminds you a lot of what Dave will sometimes wear.

  
  


You hand the phone back. “You and her look like you share clothes.”

  
  


Dave practically inhales his sandwich. “Oh my god that’s the best idea ever. Fuck, why didn’t I think of that?”

  
  


“You can pitch it to her once she gets here,” you suggest, sipping at your coffee. You’d recently acquired a taste for java. Cal approves of it.

  
  


“Yea. About that…”

  
  


You look over at Dave. He swings his legs off the edge of the rock, fleece leggings a pale grey

  
  


“So.” He hums. Stalling. “I talked to Hal recently.”

  
  


It’s like your heart forgets to jump or race. That or it lets itself be kept still. “Yeah?”

  
  


“He told me he was coming over soon.” Dave flicks a pebble off the side. It goes clattering down. “Were you just not gonna tell me?”

  
  


The idea of there no longer being a time limit feels strangely permanent.

  
  


You give Dave a wan smile that he does not turn around to see. “It slipped my mind.”

  
  


“Oh.”

  
  


He finishes his sandwich in silence. You acutely feel the terribleness of your decisions weigh down upon you.

  
  


“You can talk to Hal whenever you want to,” you find yourself offering, “you don’t need to tell me or ask permission. He’s your brother, too.”

  
  


“I like talking to you better.” You’re taken aback at how quickly he says that. “Hal’s like, I guess he still thinks I’m a little kid or somethin’? I don’t know, he just acts funny sometimes.”

  
  


“Probably because he didn’t raise you, is all. He gets pictures and Minecraft and such, but he’s not here all the time. I doubt he’s around any kids over there, either.”

  
  


“But he will be. Here.” Dave sucks his box of AJ bone dry in a matter of moments. That’s why you packed the second one. And the third one. “That’s weird. Like, weirder than the idea that all of my friends will be here, too.”

  
  


There’s a stretch of companionable silence. In it, Dave begins shivering at the near constant wind, this high up. You put your arm around him and pull him into your side, where he can’t be perfectly tucked into anymore but still fits well either way.

  
  


“What’re we gonna do about Cal?” Dave asks, seemingly apropos of nothing, though perhaps not. “Is he just gonna have to hide or somethin’? Are we gonna balls to the wall introduce him to a bunch of new people at once and hope they don’t run away screaming to the nearest exorcist?”

  
  


“I was thinking that I’d have Hal help me decide. And you and Cal, obviously.”

  
  


Dave’s expression is almost distraught. “You’re telling Hal?”

  
  


You raise an eyebrow at him. “There’s not much about me that Hal doesn’t know, Dave. It will be nearly impossible not to tell him. He’ll make it that way.” You consider your options for only a moment. “Dave, if given the chance, would you move away?”

  
  


He goes stock still. “What, _no __way__, _I… Like, uh, from Gravity Falls?”

  
  


“From me, but yes.” He jerks back as if struck. You quickly realize your mistake, reaching out to steady him against falling from what would no doubt be a fatal height. Shit. “I’m sorry, nevermind. I’m only worried. I didn’t mean to bring it up so bluntly.”

  
  


“Oh.” He stands up restlessly, taking a few steps away despite visibly being cold and in need of comfort. “Okay.”

  
  


You let him go. You feel like a monster – that hasn’t happened regarding Dave in a while. It stings.

  
  


You tell yourself that there is no time limit. What is to come need not be inevitable.

  
  


Dave stands at the precipice of safety – the very edge of Caliborn’s ‘terrortory’ – and danger – the fall down the mountain-like hill, where a point of no return will be instated.

  
  


You wish you could give him more of a choice, but…

  
  


Hal can’t take Dave away from you. He _can’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7GXRv6xVY)   
[[CLICK HERE for the tragedy (or well it would've been if it hadn't blown up as a goddamn meme on tiktok)]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4-nW0y3Z4s)   
[[CLICK HERE for a distraction]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA_dtDNhURU)


	13. You’ll Find Me Where The Crows Fly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Depression, panic attacks, miscommunication, soft mind break(s), consensual possession, body sharing/soul sharing, out of body experiences, schmoopy platonic intimacy, co-dependency, coercive affection, endangerment of (adult) disabled character, (consensual) removal of prosthesis, amateur robotics jargon, secret relationship chicanery, references to sex work, referenced past child sexual abuse/underage sex work, discussions of virginity & rejecting masculinity, aphobia/aphobic language, manipulation, past food insecurity, past child abuse, breaches of privacy, ableist language (crazy, nuts), implied romantic relationships, terrible horrible flirting, unresolved tension, implied unrequited Kankri<>Dirk, queerplatonic Eridan<>Sollux??, Jade/Dave, implied unrequited Dave/Karkat, past Dirk/Jake, cliffhanger-esque ending.

It’s already the first weekday after the end of the kids’ Winter Break. You’d ask where the time’s gone, but you don’t want to know.

  
  


You’re over at the Vantas’ Residence, keeping quiet company.

  
  


Watching Kankri’s profile as he pecks away at his computer’s keyboard, you conclude that he exists in some facet of tangible loneliness, although it’s the kind that results in muddling silences and stolen glances full of stuff and things that the other party graciously pretends not to see.

  
  


Even with the bolstering warmth splitting deep within your chest, never abating and certainly never leaving, something about this whole situation smacks of your own mistakes. You can’t argue against it.

  
  


You’re at the sink washing off the fruit Kan bought the other day from the Normal Grocery – the Farmer’s Market won’t open until Springtime. He has a bad habit of forgoing rinsing them.

  
  


Kankri leans back in his chair at the kitchen table, sighing and running his hands over his face. On his laptop screen you can spy a multitude of text-heavy documents, as many open as he can reasonably fit on one window.

  
  


Yikes. He looks like he could use some organique strawberries.

  
  


When he spies your creeping hand holding the container of freshly washed strawberries slowly slide up next to him, he looks confused, but it quickly turns into a half-crescent smile. He takes a strawberry.

  
  


“Might as well have a break,” he mumbles around the biggest berry from the batch, shutting his laptop with a muted euphoria you can empathize with. “Even if I’m capable of getting it done right now, this woman always responds hours late. I understand that she’s the most senior member of our team, but a little more courtesy could go a long way.”

  
  


“Might as well,” you agree. The two of your move your sad campy asses to the couch, bringing along the fruit.

  
  


Kankri turns the TV on. He hates silences – needs noise to zone out to. It’s why he opens his window at night.

  
  


He leaves it on whatever random channel it is, not bothering to switch to the news like he normally does. It’s a documentary that’s several decades out of date and/or had little funding to work with.

  
  


You get somewhat absorbed in it, either due to the lack of engagement with the only other person in this room or because you’re one to easily lose yourself.

  
  


It’s a long-winded examination of the myth of Persephone and Hades, a forty-five minute diatribe accompanied by images and slow videos that all could have been summarized – and most likely has been – in a Wikipedia article.

  
  


In traditional tellings of the myth, Hades tricks Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds, damning her to several months spent in the Underworld each year. In more modern re-tellings, she eats the seeds herself, then spits out half – not a damning at all, but a choice.

  
  


You suck strawberry juice off of your teeth.

  
  


You’ve eaten the whole damn fruit, haven’t you.

  
  


Feeling an undead man’s heartbeat like a fluttering bird’s seemed like an impossibility you’d never considered until Caliborn lured you up to his off-putting ‘sanctuary,’ making you a deal in the bright of day like he knew exactly what he was doing. It’s the singular thing you are aware of in moments of floaty, detached silence.

  
  


A burning heartbeat that shouldn’t exist, but does now.

  
  


Maybe it persists only because it’s with you.

  
  


“Heartburn?”

  
  


You don’t startle – to your right, Kankri is nodding self-imperiously at how you clutch your own chest, an action you’re not fully aware of doing until he points it out. Guiltily, you lower your hand.

  
  


You say, “Yea,” because that _is_ one way of putting it.

  
  


If he thinks it’s strange how seriously you answer, he keeps it to himself. “I can give you something for that if you would like.”

  
  


He probably means those purple pills he sometimes pops after eating. “Nah, I think I’ll survive.”

  
  


Kankri gets you a glass of water anyways. You try not to let your heart pang duly. You fail.

  
  


Once he sits back down, he sighs. “I wonder what the other people that used to be in the same school with me are doing now.”

  
  


You hardly remember the people at any school you’ve been to, in-person or otherwise. You shrug. “Probably about the same as what you’re doing.”

  
  


“Possibly. It’s not as if online college precludes a life of overwhelming success or anything,” he says with that sardonic pessimism that he’s adopted.

  
  


“I think you’re plenty successful,” you tell him, if only to get that expression off his face. “You worked hard as hell to get where you are today. That’s admirable.”

  
  


He gives you a lopsided smile. “Thanks. You would say that, though, wouldn’t you.”

  
  


You really don’t know how to respond to that, so you don’t, pretending to get caught up in the channel’s next underfunded documentary that looks like it was filmed on a potato. It’s not as interesting as the first one.

  
  


Kankri says, “What do you think we would be doing if it had never happened?”

  
  


You turn to him in mild confusion. “What?”

  
  


“If we never had to raise our younger siblings, I mean.” He looks unsure, but not enough to stop him from starting this conversation. “I know I wouldn’t have come to Gravity Falls in the first place.”

  
  


“Same.”

  
  


“But what if we met due to some other circumstance rather than our younger siblings being in the same class together? Would we have had a chance at friendship, still? Or do you think we would have ghosted past each other, not knowing that…”

  
  


You’re about to say something non-committal or perhaps overbearing, like ‘I don’t know’ or ‘please stop making me feel torn up about rejecting you right after you found out your ex-boyfriend wasn’t really your ex and is actually dead,’ but then you decide to give yourself a moment to ponder it.

  
  


In hindsight, you could have run somewhere other than Oregon. It was the listing of the house that jumped out at you from a temporary email you’d installed. At the time you were making awfully rash decisions, several of which you continue to refuse to think about. You wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t responded to the first person that contacted you, or if nobody had contacted you at all.

  
  


When you try to think about what would have happened if you’d waited a day or more, your train of thought halts abruptly because you cannot conceive a world in which you survived further without being caught.

  
  


You imagine what your life here in Gravity Falls would have been like without Caliborn. If your house was just a house that you escaped to, never destined to become a home.

  
  


At first it’s hard to conceptualize, but then all at once it’s the easiest thing you’ve ever done. You don’t like what you see. You can’t imagine a life where you _do_ like what you see, not in any route lacking Dave, even the ones not deficient of Caliborn.

  
  


You aren’t going to beat around the bush at what you uncover, what your fate would be without Dave. “I’d be long gone before you ever noticed me.” You don’t want to think about how your tremulous relationship with Cal likely would not have changed had there not been a literal toddler in the middle. How _you_ would not have changed.

  
  


It looks like Kankri tries for a smile, but it flops somewhere in the middle, leaving you and him simply gazing at each other for an extended amount of time wherein nothing is communicated.

  
  


You decide to change the subject. “Dave’s having his online friends over. My brother will be here, too. I wanted to ask you if you’d like to visit the woodside crackhouse this April when it happens.”

  
  


Kankri looks traumatized. You try not to laugh at him. “The _what!?_ Are you talking about your- your _house?”_

  
  


“Yea,” you snort. “Sorry. Only I call it that.” He doesn’t appear comforted. “It’s really not that bad anymore,” you defend, “Almost no ‘dereliction’ to be found.”

  
  


“’Anymore’, he says.” Kankri shoots you a chuffed expression. “I suppose that would be the time to do it; I know Karkat will be excited to meet those online friends of his as well, so I can’t imagine not going for at least a little bit. I’ve been trying my best to give you your privacy, knowing that I’ve asked so much of you the past however many years.”

  
  


You boggle at him. It can’t be an attractive expression on your face. “What are you talking about. If anyone’s asked plenty of the other, it’s me. Foist my kid off on you every week just so that I can draw porn for money.”

  
  


“Oh dear Lord,” he whispers in something like horror. “Is that what you do?”

  
  


You nod shortly.

  
  


He leans back into the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming.”

  
  


“How else do you think I make money?” You ask before things spiral horribly in some direction you aren’t prepared for and you end up rescinding your visitation rights.

  
  


“That’s the funny thing,” he says, “I tried not to think about it.” He gives you that look that means he’s reluctant to bring something up, but would actually really like to know the answer regardless. “Do the kids know…?”

  
  


“That’s what _I _try not to think about. I’ve never talked about it outright, but those kids love to walk in on me without knocking, plus I know Dave snoops when I’m not home.” You almost say ‘Caliborn told me’ but bite your tongue at the last moment, shocked at how you’ve let your guard down. Kankri does that to you sometimes.

  
  


“I swear I taught him how to knock,” Kankri says with an embarrassed groan.

  
  


You give him a shitty little smile. “I didn’t.”

  
  


He shakes his head at you, but you like to think it’s at least fond. “So – not that I’m attempting to pressure you, and if so then I apologize – at this upcoming shindig, will I get to meet your mysterious partner?”

  
  


_Pray that you don’t._ But you can’t say that for a multitude of reasons. You sit up in manic discomfort, taking your forgotten cup of water into hand.

  
  


“Sure.” You tilt the cup as if to take a drink, stopping halfway there. “Although I gotta warn you: my house is a little haunted.”

  
  


You pour water down your throat and pretend to not see Kankri’s lingering consternation.

  
  


You preemptively text Dave around when school lets out and tell him to follow Karkat to Kankri’s. They come riding up with Dave clinging to Karkat’s shoulders, standing on the spokes at the back of the bike. Dave complains about hand cramps which has Karkat flashing him an utterly banal look, but he’s over it by the time he filches a frozen yogurt bar from the freezer before y’all leave.

  
  


“Kat got moved up to tenth grade History,” Dave tells you in between biting chunks out of his unmelted peach yogurt bar because it’s fucking winter and this boy is mad. “It’s so boring in sixth period now. Like I get that good grades and college opportunity shit matter to him, and I’m not gonna, like, guilt him into staying in the same classes as me just because I’m bored, but I’m allowed to be sad about it at least sometimes, right. Right? I’m right.”

  
  


You raise an eyebrow at him.

  
  


“Dammit.” He suckles the last of the frothy juice from the stick, chewing on the wood. He’s gonna get another splinter doing that. “Nevermind. If Terezi told me I was bein’ a brat I guess I am and I gotta get over it.”

  
  


At a stoplight, you reach over and steal his popsicle stick. He lets you take it because he knows what having something tiny and impossible to find impaled in his tongue feels like.

  
  


When you get home, Dave nabs a snack or five from the kitchen then plods up to his room, oozing that customary ‘I just got done with High School and yes, it _does_ suck, thanks for asking’ brand of tired. His nap will last either thirty minutes or until nearly midnight, wherein he’ll then spend several hours playing online games with Jade. You should know – some mornings you check on him to make sure he’s getting ready for school only to find him either still gaming nonstop or passed out at his desk with headphones on.

  
  


You’d ask Caliborn to make sure Dave gets at least a few hours of sleep before school if he’s gonna nap the evenings and game the nights away, but the last couple of times you tried, you’re pretty sure Caliborn simply gave Dave some candy and then let him do whatever the hell he wanted.

  
  


You can’t trust those two when they get into cahoots like that.

  
  


Speak of the devil… “You didn’t let Dave take another fluffernutter Uncrustable, did you. He’s already had his this morning.”

  
  


Caliborn bypasses your completely valid question by sidling up behind you, lifting your limp hands with his and pushing them firmly to your chest. He does not have small hands. “YOU ARE NOT COLD.”

  
  


“That’s right.” The deepness inside your chest feels warmer than the parts of him pressed up against you. “Good golly, wonder how that happened. Suppose I’ve contracted a sickness. Cough, hem.”

  
  


“CUTE.” Cal makes something like a scoff, only it sends a heady rush of heat down the back of your neck instead of simply breathed air.

  
  


“Swoon,” you verbalize as you drop all of your weight backwards so that he has to either hold you up or let you fall onto his feet. He holds you up. “You know just what to say to make it to the center of a girl’s tootsie pop.”

  
  


“I COULD DROP YOU.”

  
  


The double entendre takes neither of you by surprise.

  
  


“You could.” You tilt your head back until it’s somewhat painful with how your up-do braids dig into your scalp against the solid plate of his chest, though you imagine he suffers no such bodily annoyance from the way he raises one… it’s not an eyebrow, really, it’s more like… well you don’t know, but it’s not hair and it’s not muscle, so you’re going to pretend like it doesn’t bamboozle you.

  
  


An immeasurable amount of time passes. No such water comes up over you, but neither does he let you go.

  
  


Today Dave must’ve taken a short nap with how he comes hopping down the stairs, halting at the bottom once he sees you and Caliborn basically embracing in the living room.

  
  


He goes, “Ew,” even though the relationship(??) you have with Caliborn is outwardly the most chaste you’ll ever be in your entire adult life, ill-advised soul-sharing aside.

  
  


Cal seems to grasp your trail of thought by its tail, digging his thumb into the dip between head and spine. “WE’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING.”

  
  


“No, trust me, what you’re doing is enough,” Dave whines, pretending to shield his eyes.

  
  


In response, Caliborn does drop you – physically, that is – though he redeems himself by picking up your legs and shoulders before you hit the ground, lifting you into the air and holding you there like he’s some kinda fuckin’ strongman.

  
  


Because you’re a team player, you pose like a bikini model laying on the hood of a hotrod.

  
  


Dave makes his most disgusted face yet. “Man, Bro you let him get away with that shit? Gross.”

  
  


“That’s hypocritical. You literally had me carry you from the kitchen to the couch a day ago,” you point out from your tall position as America’s Next Top Possession Victim.

  
  


“I didn’t wanna drop my chickey nugs!”

  
  


You roll your eyes at his logic, then pat at Caliborn’s freakishly developed bicep until he puts you back down onto your feet. You land like a cheerleader: jazz-hands with one foot popped into the air.

  
  


Dave laughs like he’s helpless not to.

  
  


For dinner you pull out the last of the leftovers Rosa gave you when you spent a few days of the kids’ Winter Break helping Kanaya get more of her Driver’s Permit hours using your truck. Rosa’s little Toyota was in the shop.

  
  


It’s quesadillas. Dave fucking loves Rosa’s cooking so he gobbles it up with more gusto than he ever has your literally freshly caught lake fish dinners. You’ve learned to get over yourself and let him have his damn cheese.

  
  


Like a smug reminder, Dave grabs a small bag of hot cheetos before he returns to his room. Probably to squirrel it away into his closet. That or he’s planning on eating it at 3AM and you’re going to be woken up by the sounds of him guzzling water from the bathroom sink and crying. Again.

  
  


You shake your head at the memory, listening to his bedroom door closing. Him and his kitten mouth, you swear.

  
  


Whatever good mood this day has provided you with is siphoned away when you go up to your room and find that you have several messages from Hal. You’ve gotten into the habit of leaving your phone on your desk when you’re at home as a way to emotionally distance yourself from the inevitable.

  
  


In return, your bedroom feels less and less like a place you want to be in.

  
  


You know Caliborn is with you not from his heat, his voice, or even his sixth-sense presence you’ve learned to read throughout the years, but from the way your heart glows like an ember you keep trapped in a tin can.

  
  


It’s frightening. Stubbornly, you push yourself to see it as normality instead. It works.

  
  


You reluctantly open up the messenger app, a feat that becomes increasingly herculean the longer this goes on.

  
  


**Hal**

>Got the ticket.

>See you on April Fool’s.

>And don’t even think about trying to set me up at the only hotel in town. I’m not paying for that shit and neither are you.

>I’m coming straight there and then I’m passing out for however long I need to on the softest bed you can possibly provide that is close enough to an outlet for my arms to charge.

  
  


**You**

>Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.

>Dave’s is the softest, so you’ll have to deal with mine.

  
  


**Hal**

>I can live with that.

  
  


Hal sends more messages. He never sends just one, does he? Bastard.

  
  


Cal’s warm hand pushes down at your nape, causing you to bend. Your limbs are shaking, knees ready to give out from under you at the slightest provocation. You make it to the bed before that happens.

  
  


“YOU AND YOUR FRAILTIES.”

  
  


You say, _“__What,”_ with all the frailty of squealing tires right before a collision.

  
  


“HMPH. DON’T LET ME DISTURB YOU.”

  
  


Needless to say, your reply is full of sarcasm. “Of course not, why would my big macho man disturb me, huh. You’ve never done any such thing.”

  
  


Caliborn flips you off.

  
  


You honk an embarrassingly candid laugh that you quickly suck back in. He must’ve picked that one up from Dave.

  
  


The hilarity is quickly abandoned once you look back down at your phone.

  
  


**Hal**

>Anything you would care to say in your defense before I arrive?

>I know that the last time I was there the place wasn’t exactly a four star experience. Or a three star. Or a two star. Maybe not even a one star.

>I imagine you’ve cleaned a bit by now, if only for Dave’s sake.

  
  


You get mildly offended.

  
  


“He’s insinuating that our house will be dirty,” you complain out loud.

  
  


“IT WAS. UNTIL I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO CLEAN IT BETTER.”

  
  


You must make an expression of doubt because Cal stutters a chortle from across the room where he’s standing at his favorite spot near the window.

  
  


“Whatever.” If you sound like a petulant child, it’s not your fault. “Maybe I’ll tell him this place is haunted yet miraculously hard water buildup free.”

  
  


Caliborn comes closer and sits on the bed next to you, enacting one of those strangely intimate moments where he feels less like a ghost and more like a normal dude that you have a home and, arguably, a kid with. Your shared heartbeat flutters.

  
  


He looks at you like he is fully aware of what you felt. “IF THAT IS WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO. KNOW THAT I WILL NOT STOP YOU. FAMILY KNOWS FAMILY BEST.”

  
  


Feeling oddly comforted, you nod.

  
  


**You**

>House’s haunted.

  
  


Hal doesn’t reply for several long minutes, though it shows him as online.

  
  


“WELL. YOU COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB. THAN THAT.”

  
  


“Are you criticizing my amazing ability of summation,” you ask as you cheekily pat at the not-meat of his bare thigh. He looks down like he doesn’t comprehend what you’re doing, which is hilarious.

  
  


“YES.” Succinct.

  
  


“Too late now. Don’t you know that any messages sent can’t be taken back? The wonder of technology, green.”

  
  


Cal might say something snotty about how he detests modern times and how in his educated opinion you’d be better off without your ‘braindeath machines’ but you’re distracted by Hal replying, once again sucking everything except the anxiety from your body.

  
  


**Hal**

>After five whole minutes I can say that I literally do not know how to respond to that other than to assume you’re fucking with me.

  
  


**You**

>I’m not.

>But I know you won’t believe me unless you see it with your own eyes. Possibly even get a sample of it to study.

>Just thought I’d give you a heads up. Visit at your own risk.

  
  


**Hal**

>You’re fucking with me.

>Also you’re equating me with a cartoonishly genius scientist who refuses to believe in Astrology, ghosts, or vitamin water.

>And you would be right.

  
  


**You**

>One of those is not like the others.

  
  


**Hal**

>See you soon, bro.

  
  


With relief, you toss your phone elsewhere. “Well, I fuckin’ tried.”

  
  


“HARDLY.” You negate Cal’s disagreeing by falling sideways until your head is in his lap. “DIRTY POOL, DIRK.”

  
  


“Hardly,” you echo him. Your head feels like it’s hovering inches above an open hot tub.

  
  


A quiet moment erupts. He does not caress you. You’re glad for it. If he did, you don’t know what you might do or say, but you imagine it’ll be something you shouldn’t do or say. Something that’ll drag you even deeper into this mess than you’ve already willingly buried yourself.

  
  


“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT.”

  
  


You open eyes you weren’t aware shut. “What I’m always thinking about. Or not thinking about, depending on how I go at it.”

  
  


“WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A WALK. WITH ME.”

  
  


Your breathing shallows in a nauseous mix of excitement and horror. A burn settles under your right hip and you’d move with it, or perhaps away from it, if only you weren’t so used to the heat.

  
  


“I NEED A YES.” Caliborn reaches down and digs a claw up under your shirt, adding to the pain in a way only he can. You wince, fighting to not bury your face further into the faux-flesh of his body. You already know there’s no comfort there. “OR A NO.”

  
  


“Don’t think I have a ‘no’ in me anymore,” you say lowly.

  
  


He makes a deep noise that would be a growl if only he were in the body of an animal like all humans are. Except he’s not – he’s solid smoke tinted to a noxious color that fuels the blood pumping through your veins, delivering oxygen to your lungs and brain.

  
  


The day you breathe him in and out fully will not be one that surprises you.

  
  


For a long moment you’re overwhelmed by a crushing feeling in your chest, something that hollows you out, taking you away from even the most blazing of fires, of which you now keep inside of yourself.

  
  


“YOU HAVE MORE IN YOU. THAN YOU REALIZE.”

  
  


You find yourself being rolled to the side, deposited aside onto the bed. You feel stark displeasure at this, sitting up immediately as if you’re going to yell when you almost never raise your voice otherwise.

  
  


Caliborn leans over you, making you realize he never left at all, but was simply getting the useless cargo off his lap. Damn. “I UNDERSTAND IT IS HARD FOR YOU. TO FIND YOURSELF IN NEED OF ASKING. FOR HELP. FOR SOLACE. BUT KNOW THAT I WILL DELIVER. WHAT YOU WANT. AND **ONLY** WHAT YOU WANT.”

  
  


“Ah,” you say, even though that’s not a word but a noise that conveys nothing yet also too much. You breathe through the heat in your face that has nothing to do with supernatural means, and everything to do with the programmed worm inside of you that tells you that you are to blame for wanting or not wanting. “Mm.”

  
  


When he doesn’t immediately crash your head underneath the waves, you dig knuckles into your chest and do it yourself.

  
  


Cal doesn’t help at all. That only makes you more determined to do it on your own. You’re reaching out a metaphorical hand to that tether that irrevocably ties the two of you together, a sliver of his heart in yours and something of yours in something of his that you can never quite differentiate from the rest of him, when you feel him grasp you in return and finally pull you the rest of the way down.

  
  


You’re smug in the back of this metaphorical car ride, actively leaning forward to peer out the front window while Cal motors your body around with a kind of finesse that’s almost human.

  
  


But only almost.

  
  


“Oh, uh…” Says Dave’s voice. “Hey. Um…”

  
  


Dave is in the living room as Cal walks your body down the stairs. Instead of trying to speak, Cal lifts your hand and waves.

  
  


“...Right right right cool,” mumbles Dave. “This isn’t weird as fuck or anything.”

  
  


His voice is muffled in a way you only hear when he’s a room apart. You try to roll down the windows only to discover that there is no way to do so in this imaginary concept of a car. Trying to build the function now will result in a dismantling of the entire concept, requiring you to push the intruder out in order for you to re-form from the outside in. Create a new subroutine – you can’t do that while the program is running.

  
  


Sometimes your need to visualize in the nothingness is a curse, not a boon.

  
  


You decide that it’s best to leave Dave alone. He doesn’t seem overly comfortable right now. It’s making you nervous, making you wonder what you look like when you and Caliborn are ‘together’ like this.

  
  


As if responding to your distress, the connection wavers. You find yourself with a hand on the wheel, no knowledge of where Caliborn is and is not. You steer your body outside in a detached way, like someone dissociating so hard that they literally astral project into a car that doesn’t exist that is not floating in space, but might as well be because your human mind can only conceptualize the nothingness as blackness instead of a lack of anything at all.

  
  


To summarize: It’s complicated. Walking yourself outside when you’re not alone in your head is complicated, but you manage it.

  
  


Caliborn slips back into control as if that hadn’t happened at all. Funnily enough, him walking you into the backyard goes a lot smoother than you walking yourself.

  
  


You could make a metaphor out of this.

  
  


He walks your body to the Sittin’ Boulder. Something about the name displeases him, but he sits on it anyways. Uses your eyes and head to gaze around the clearing and deeply through the darkening treeline.

  
  


Beady red eyes stare at you from a low branch, of which Caliborn spots immediately. The two facets of you identify her as the crow, Calliope.

  
  


Caliborn’s crow. Caliborn’s sister.

  
  


You feel your metaphorical self slowly float away into the backseat like a feather being gently brushed off of a table, unable to see from your own eyes or hear from your own ears or receive sensory input from your own skin. It’s disquieting, but you can’t find it in yourself to fight, like your own foot is standing on your own chest, holding you down.

  
  


You have no gut to churn anxiety with and your brain is being used to do things that you are not in charge of, so you have no place to stack your worries as you are completely blinded to what Caliborn may be doing with your body right now. You imagine that it involves sitting and staring unnervingly hard at several things.

  
  


Time doesn’t pass like this. If your soul didn’t cling to the idea of being able to blink at a boring car ceiling, you think you could easily lose yourself without ever being aware that you’re being dissolved into nothingness at all.

  
  


There’s the heat in your heart, of course, but in a not-place where that heat is dispersed evenly everywhere, across everything you are, it’s difficult to differentiate.

  
  


Despite this, you’re not afraid. You’re simply existing. It’s not calming, because you cannot be calm like how you cannot be panicked, but it’s something close enough that your limited grasp on language can identify it as. Someone once upon a time had to name these emotions.

  
  


When you decide to sit up based upon no instinct or cue whatsoever beyond your own desire, you find your eyes looking at your bedroom door from the inside. Caliborn has sat you upon your bed with impeccable posture.

  
  


You don’t hear him ask you if you’re with him, and you don’t hear yourself say yes, but the exchange lasts for a microsecond and is understood immediately.

  
  


He slips apart in a direction you cannot follow no matter how hard you hang on to him. It’s so discombobulating that you’re forced into making a thin, weak noise of confusion with a throat that is now only yours. You understand that you’re afraid he’ll disappear for the night despite observing that that caveat no longer applies. Before and after you sink, Cal is always here.

  
  


That doesn’t stop the fear.

  
  


“Don’t. Don’t leave.” _Me._

  
  


“I CANNOT LEAVE YOU.”

  
  


What a horrible feeling, to be consoled by something so awful.

  
  


You deeply understand that this cannot save you. But that’s a thought for another time, however soon.

  
  


You’re not tired or hurt or confused. You lay down on your bed, seeing only the green of how close your ghost stands to you, before you close your eyes and are instantly lost to sleep, where even there you’re not allowed to be alone.

* * *

Early March finds you and several of the bambinos chilling in Sollux’s room. Eridan’s eighteenth birthday was over a week ago – Sollux’s nineteenth slated for that May.

  
  


Apparently, this means that it’s about time for them to move out together. This makes you understand a few things, including the absolutely stormy disposition Captor Papa had greeted you at the front door with.

  
  


Mituna has yet to make an appearance.

  
  


Not for the first time, you sit on Sollux’s bed and feel real damn outta place. You wonder if any of these kids care that you’re nearing thirty.

  
  


“Dad likes to conveniently forget that I went of my own volition into the woods with Eridan to fuck around with those guns,” says Sollux. Karkat has his ‘I am 100% listening’ face on, sitting backwards in his chair and everything. “I chose to go. He didn’t mean to shoot me and I didn’t mean to get shot – we were just goofing off.”

  
  


“You’re allowed to make mistakes when you’re a teenager. That’s practically the whole point of being a teenager!” Karkat argues, “It’s not like your dad was the one that went blind. It’s not like you blinded somebody else – if anybody’s suffered enough, it’s you. You faced the consequences. Technically, so did Eridan.”

  
  


“Right.” Sollux shifts minutely, slouching even more in his honey-yellow Gamer Chair. “We were never _friends,_ but I didn’t _hate_ Eridan, either. And I don’t care what my Dad thinks – I don’t hate him now! I mean, obviously, since I’ve basically got him under house arrest in my room.”

  
  


The shower down the hall is still running. You know from previous texts sent by Mituna that Eridan takes incredibly long showers.

  
  


“When he blinded me,” continues Sollux, “a lot of things got taken away from me. Namely my eyeballs. And also probably my chance at Feferi. The less said about that the better. But now I have so many other options that I didn’t before. Maybe my Dad thinks his sons both turned out to be total losers, but fuck, dude, whatever. I’m going to be a badass blind programmer and Eridan is going to fund me with his asshole uncle’s huge inheritance while we rent a mediocre apartment and I take classes at the University.”

  
  


Karkat tries to keep a straight face but fails, breaking out into a strained laugh. “Are you saying you’re about to make Eridan your shitty college husband, only used for his huge wallet?”

  
  


“What else would he be good at?”

  
  


From the floor, Dave looks up from his handheld game and snorts.

  
  


Sollux smiles briefly before letting it fall from his face. “...Aradia doesn’t think leaving him alone is a good idea.”

  
  


Karkat takes a quiet yet intensely deep breath. “Yeah. I understand that.”

  
  


You glance down. Dave’s game is paused, but he’s faced away from everybody bar you, fingers pretending to poke at the buttons.

  
  


The shower shuts off. Without hesitance, Sollux yells throughout the upper floor, “Eridan! For the last time, pick up your skirts! I keep tripping on them! They’re like flash-femme landmines!”

  
  


While Eridan audibly stutters and cusses in surprise, Dave drops his handheld and looks up in barely concealed excitement. “Yo, y’all talkin’ ‘bout skirts??”

  
  


“Yea,” Sollux says. “His uncle-dad was a real hardass and super controlling. When he wasn’t pretending his ‘son’ didn’t exist, anyways. So now Eridan is, like, overcompensating. He bought five different skirts and one dress.”

  
  


“Wow! Way to hop straight off his dick and onto conclusions, you closed-minded dipshit! Maybe he really _does_ like wearing skirts and it has nothing to do with his fucked up murder-uncle!” Karkat tries to give Sollux a _look_ before seeming to realize what he’s doing is pointless. He then glances around like he hopes nobody saw him do that.

  
  


“Whatever.” Sollux stands from his chair. “He’s got the time to figure it out.”

  
  


Something about the way he says that trips the tiniest of alarm bells in his audience. “What does _that_ mean?” Karkat asks.

  
  


Sollux looks uncomfortable. “His dad was fixing to ship him off to the navy as soon as he hit eighteen.” He doesn’t seem to realize that he uses ‘Eridan’s dad’ and ‘Eridan’s uncle’ interchangeably. “I don’t know if it was some kind of Ampora tradition or if it was punishment for… well, stuff. Eridan doesn’t like to talk about it – makes him pissy.”

  
  


Meanwhile, Dave is pulling one of Eridan’s skirts up his legs. It’s purple and pleated. It’s way too big for him. “Karkat do you think this skirt is too big for me –”

  
  


Karkat says, “Yes,” without looking.

  
  


Dave makes an exaggerated frowny face in Karkat’s direction then tries to stubbornly clasp it around his waist anyways. It threatens to slide back to the floor.

  
  


With wet hair and the slight dampness of someone who didn’t fully dry off before getting dressed, Eridan walks in.

  
  


Dave freezes and looks at him.

  
  


Eridan looks back.

  
  


Nobody says anything.

  
  


“Well!” Loudly announces Sollux. “I assume _something_ awkward and embarrassing is happening but it would be outta this fucking _world_ if somebody would _explain what!”_

  
  


Karkat makes one of his angry grunting noises that would sound a lot less like a defensive kitten if his voice would fully drop. “Dave’s desperately shoving himself into one of Eridan’s skirts like the single sardine left in the can that nobody wants.” He abandons his chair and grabs hold of Dave by the waist, trying to wriggle his fingers between his hips and the skirt’s band. “Give me that! You and your fucking grabby hands, jesus shitting christ!”

  
  


Dave barely struggles, though his knuckles have gone even paler than usual with how he grips the skirt on his body. “Oh my goddd, I was just tryin’ it on!”

  
  


“Well then STOP TRYING IT ON!”

  
  


“It’s. It’s okay,” hedges Eridan, putting up one hand like he distantly thought about helping but has already given up. “He can try it on if he wants. I’m not wearing it right now.”

  
  


For some reason, Sollux snorts loudly. Eridan squints at him unfavorably.

  
  


You lean back and watch Karkat give up on forcing Dave out of the skirt, crossing his arms and looking as grumpy as he ever can.

  
  


Dave gives off one of his high-pitched giggles that sounds like _“hihihihi!”_ It always spells trouble. “Katkat you try it on next,” he says as he yanks his shirt out of the skirt and starts to take it off.

  
  


Karkat, still mad about being snubbed, predictably shouts, “NO I WILL NOT!”

  
  


“I know you want to, look at your face, you definitely want to sashay around in this skirt, knocking delicate glassware on tipsy side tables over with your hips, costing you millions of dollars and indebting you to the Host Club for –” Karkat reaches over and pinches Dave’s exposed belly chub. “Oww, owwie.”

  
  


“NO I DON’T!” Yells Karkat right as Sollux says, “Yes you do.”

  
  


Karkat spins around and stares all distraught-like at his friend. Eridan simply looks uncomfortable at Sollux’s side.

  
  


“See?” Dave clumsily steps out of the unbuttoned skirt, flapping it around in Karkat’s face. “It won’t fuckin’ bite, man.”

  
  


Looking a mix of reluctantly excited, Karkat snatches the skirt away, wrinkling it. “Fine! If Eridan didn’t want these to get ruined then he shouldn’t have left them on the floor!!”

  
  


While Karkat balances against a chair and carefully steps into the skirt, Eridan blinks and offers nothing while Sollux prods him in the side.

  
  


After a few moments of struggling, Karkat lets out a frustrated noise. “I can’t button it! _Fuck!”_

  
  


“It doesn’t fit you either but, like, in the opposite direction,” says Dave, who has returned to the floor where the handheld is as if he didn’t instigate this entire song-and-dance.

  
  


Karkat squints down at him. “You only wanted me to try this on so that you’d feel better about it not fitting you, you sneaky little shit!”

  
  


Dave mumbles “lol busted.” Karkat assaults him with the skirt. He stops when he accidentally gets Dave in the cheek with the hard plastic button, though, a quick and quiet exchange of, “sorry, are you okay?” – “yea I’m okay,” passing between them.

  
  


You let out a quiet sigh. Kids.

  
  


Dave says, “Now Bro try it on.”

  
  


You’re phased back into the scene as if everybody there suddenly remembers you exist and are watching everything they say and do.

  
  


Eridan looks at you with a strange face bracketing intensely somber eyes, bereft of the makeup and piercings he was wearing on any other occasion you’ve seen him. His uncontoured, doughy white skin is poked full of minuscule holes and dotted at the chin with what looks like angry cystic acne.

  
  


“I’ve already said I don’t mind,” he says once you’ve both visually assessed each other for long enough. You can’t say you’re interested in what he thinks of you in return.

  
  


Sollux lets out a short laugh, leaning over onto Eridan’s shoulder. “That sounded like it hurt.”

  
  


Eridan whispers, “Shut _up,” _back, actually showing an expression for once.

  
  


While Dave vibrates with glee, shoving the skirt at you, you take the time to look down at what you’re wearing.

  
  


It’s your usual – sweatpants and a tank. The sweatpants are dark gray. The tanktop is black. Fuckin’ classy as hell.

  
  


“Y’all sure,” you ask.

  
  


“Yea we sure, come on.” Dave tosses the skirt into your lap impatiently before stepping back and grabbing Karkat’s wrist, pumping it up and down in time with his own while he chants, “Skirt it up. Skirt it up. Skirt it up!”

  
  


Well. Can’t say no to that.

  
  


You stand up as Dave’s chanting gets progressively louder, joined eventually by Sollux and Karkat. You don’t bother taking off your sweats because you’re not about to be up in a teenager’s room without pants.

  
  


You slide the skirt over your hips. It fits alright on your waist, maybe a little tighter than comfortable. You button and zip it.

  
  


You do a twirl.

  
  


Dave and Karkat go absolutely apeshit.

  
  


Before anybody can suggest perhaps calming down, Mituna comes thundering through the hall, speeding to a stop a little past Sollux’s room then scampering back. “WHATAMIMISSING???”

  
  


You and Mituna meet eyes.

  
  


“Whoaaa…” He breathes in overblown awe. “I WANNA TRY IT ON –”

  
  


At the same time, Sollux and Eridan both sharply say, “No!”

  
  


Mituna practically stomps his foot, his face a comical flush of anger. “MMNHH! _Fine,_ then I’m- I’m kidnapping Dirk!!”

  
  


Dave says “lol wait what” which about summarizes your own thought process as Mituna lunges forward and grabs you by the wrist, bodily pulling you from the room.

  
  


You let it happen, pretending to swoon dramatically as you hear Sollux shout, “NO Mituna you can’t just take my friends– _Ow, fuck!_ There’s a wall here! Eridan why didn’t you tell me there was a wall here!?”

  
  


“Come see my room!” Mituna whisper-shouts. Down the hall, Eridan makes a bitchy noise back at Sollux.

  
  


By the time you’re being shoved into a badly lit room that smells of rubber you almost forget that you’ve temporarily stolen Eridan’s skirt.

  
  


Mituna doesn’t seem to care what you’re wearing as he shuts the door and then spins around and around with his arms out, only stopping when he hits a lamp, sending its shade askew. He doesn’t bother to fix it. “Here we aaare! The mag- magical world of Tuuunaa!”

  
  


The first thing you notice beyond the lighting, the smell, and the lamp is that every square inch is plastered with posters, including the ceiling. Band posters, posters of skaters, posters of anime and comics you’ve never heard of. You can’t tell what the wall color is.

  
  


There’s a glass cage under the singular, heavily shaded window. Although there’s a light on inside of it, nothing’s occupying it except for a plastic figurine of an unrealistically large bee.

  
  


It looks like a teenager’s room.

  
  


Mituna’s voice says, “Bed,” from somewhere behind you, yourself being too busy looking around to notice where he’s gone.

  
  


You have a mere moment to think ‘ah, I do believe I’ve almost drowned like this once’ as you’re scooped up and tossed onto the full-sized bed. You bounce.

  
  


Mituna throws himself next, accidentally elbowing you right in the gut. _Hu__rg__._ For your own safety, you scoot to the edge.

  
  


He says, “Okay!” And then he turns to you and says, “Nap.”

  
  


It seems as if your skirtapalooza interrupted Mituna’s nap, and now he wants to continue it.

  
  


You’re not sure you’ll be falling asleep here, considering your normal sleeping conditions and also the fact that it’s maybe twelve in the afternoon, but you do decide that chilling out isn’t a bad option. Not like it’s much different from what you were doing in Sollux’s room.

  
  


While Mituna appears to fall right back asleep without hassle and nobody busts down the door to come ‘rescue’ you, you let yourself relax and examine the myriad of posters virtually surrounding the bed.

  
  


Due to a lack of things to do, you eventually give in and sleep. Uncontrolled by your poltergeist, you dream that you are the humble owner of a small koi pond full of mutated lurid green fish. Near the end, the koi begin to cannibalize each other, an event you are unable to stop. It’s not necessarily a nightmare, but you wake up discomfited.

  
  


You have no idea what time it is. Simple naps are so rare to you that it feels bizarre to wake up at all, overly warm with the entire world a wash of orange fuzziness that you soon realize is due to the blackout curtains. The sun must be going down to be that pigmented even through the shades.

  
  


You stretch with a spinal _pop,_ turning over onto your side.

  
  


Mituna is half-sitting up, texting on his phone at a pace you didn’t think possible of him. Then again, you didn’t think he could skateboard either, and then he definitely set you straight by landing you on your ass a million times until you could skateboard too, though not nearly as well as him.

  
  


Since you’re in the optimal position for it, you peek at his screen. The contact is named LATULA; his girlfriend.

  
  


Mituna’s face is oddly serious at this angle. He’s always so alive with childish emotions and spastic energy that it makes you forget that he’s three years older than you.

  
  


It’s easy to remember, however, when as soon as he notices you peering at him, his face lights up and he gives himself a serious double-chin with how hard he kicks backwards in attempt to lay himself down flat again. He drops his phone without seeming to realize it. It’s got one of those thick rubber cases on it, so you assume that it’s fine, wherever it is.

  
  


“You uh, you ssslept for a long time, huh.” Mituna reaches over and plucks something out of your hair, flicking it away. It’s a random bobby pin that you definitely didn’t put in there yourself. You don’t need to ask how it got stuck.

  
  


“Naps are weird,” you say inadequately. “What time is it?” You feel like you should be getting up. You go ahead and don’t.

  
  


“It’ss about –” Mituna suddenly shoots upright in bed, causing you to almost get hit by his deadly elbow again. You defensively lie on your back to avoid it. “OH SHIT MY MEDS!”

  
  


He proceeds to damn near tear his room apart looking for it, mumbling, “Arggh, meds meds meds meds meds meds meds meds meds,” the entire time, flinging clothes and spare skateboard wheels around.

  
  


After only a handful of seconds of this chaotic ritual, Captor Papa surprises you by cracking the bedroom door open, arm already extended with a large orange bottle in hand.

  
  


“Oh!” Mituna gasps in wonder, grabbing the bottle and twisting it open with what looks to be literally all of his strength with how his arm muscles bunch up.

  
  


In the meantime, Captor Papa gets a good gander at you.

  
  


Admittedly, you probably look like a hot mess lounging around in his son’s bed wearing his pseudo-adopted son’s skirt. Him staring at you makes you feel like you should be shaping up and apologizing for something or another.

  
  


Mituna, after finally downing his pills and returning the lid to the bottle, tries to go in for a smooch while handing it back to his dad.

  
  


Captor Papa closes the door.

  
  


“Mmmnh, stingy,” complains Mituna. “He always getss sso shy when there’s- when people’re over.”

  
  


You decide that it’s time for you to get up. You finally take off the skirt. You feel a little bad for how many wrinkles it’s gotten, but whatever scenario following those guilty feelings is shot on sight with how Mituna snatches the skirt and shoves it into one of his drawers with a shout of mirth.

  
  


Whatever. Eridan lives here – he can fight Mituna for it.

  
  


You blink in consideration. “So. Sollux and Eridan are moving out.”

  
  


Mituna makes a face that tells you exactly how much he appreciates you bringing it up: he doesn’t. “No they’re not.”

  
  


You shrug at him.

  
  


“Dad ssaid they could, uh they could live here forever,” Mituna says, head lolling unnervingly loose as he massages his neck. “He just ssaid that Eri had to- had to pay for hissss own uh. His own uh, car insurance, heh.”

  
  


You raise an eyebrow. “Eridan, too?”

  
  


It takes Mituna a moment to parse what you mean, making you realize you should’ve been more clear. “Yea! Dad said- Dad won’t kick anybody out without a reason. Not even Eri!”

  
  


Despite this, Sollux and Eridan plan to move out anyways. Sollux wasn’t sure on when it’ll happen, only that he’s confident that the University of Oregon will accept him if not also Eridan. You weren’t able to stick around to hear Eridan’s side of things, but then again, in your experience Eridan doesn’t have much of a side to tell anymore.

  
  


Mituna interrupts your halfhearted musings by throwing his door open and announcing, “Let’s go skating!”

  
  


You feel like a bag of lumpy cheese that’s been out of the refrigerator for too long. After a quick bathroom break that’s a little tense with how Mituna stands _right_ outside the door waiting for you to finish, you go skating.

  
  


Surprisingly, all of the kids (you suppose it’s about time you stopped calling Sollux and Eridan kids) plus Captor Papa are at the kitchen counter and table, eating and doing homework. You can respect that.

  
  


Dave starts clapping when he sees you, like he expected you to be dead or something and is surprised that you’re not. Mituna starts clapping too because he doesn’t want to be left out. Captor Papa shows dominance by quietly retrieving a glass of juice for his youngest son while maintaining severe eye contact with you.

  
  


Eridan gives you a look that even to you quite clearly says, “Dude, where’s my skirt?”

  
  


You opt to simply point at Mituna’s back.

  
  


Eridan’s expression crumples like so many falling cards. Sollux seems to sense his emotional distress, leaning over and smacking his back a little too hard while snickering.

  
  


Dave insists you eat a few bites of whatever it is Captor Papa’s feeding your kids – rice and vegetables or something. You don’t really get to pay attention because Mituna is practically on top of you, tugging at your arm every time he remembers that y’all should be skating right now. You get frog-marched onto the street.

  
  


After a refresher on how to skate at all considering you live in the woods and own no board, Mituna tries to get you to agree to go with him to a skate park, but thankfully Captor Papa comes out and saves your ass from having to agree by basically telling you that it’s time for you to get your damn kids out of his house and go home.

  
  


You have to go back inside to help Dave find his handheld, which is somehow under Sollux’s bed. Makes you wonder what the hell they got up to in here while you were conked out down the hall. Dave’s the only one small enough to retrieve it, but you have to pull him out by the ankles afterwards, something that gives him one of his late-in-the-day gigglefits.

  
  


By the time you round your two up and get them downstairs Captor Papa does not look pleased with you. Mituna on the other hand looks a little _too_ pleased with you. He practically bowls you over in a hugging death match. Through experience, you stay standing.

  
  


While the kids are all getting their hugs in as well, you approach Captor Papa even though it’s physically painful to do so. In your chest, your heart warms as if to soothe you, but it only helps so much before the awkward air overtakes.

  
  


“Thanks for your hospitality,” you tell him even as he looks down at you with an inscrutable expression that does not exactly spell welcome.

  
  


He stares you directly in the eyes for several long moments, ones that have you aware of the hushed audience at your back. He holds out a hand. “Anytime.”

  
  


You don’t look the mouth gift in the horse. You shake the man’s hand. He doesn’t look away throughout, which is just terrible, but you survive it.

  
  


You’re the last one out the door. Dave and Karkat are racing each other to the truck as if they aren’t both going to sit in the back together anyways.

  
  


Right before it closes behind you, you hear Mituna go, “Wait I forgot to SMOOCH!”

  
  


Captor Papa relentlessly shuts the door a bit faster than normal.

  
  


You can practically feel his gaze on your back as you finish walking down the porch steps and get into your truck.

  
  


Whatever. Bigger fish to fry soon and all.

* * *

If you were a normal man, the days leading up to the first of April would be spent sleepless.

  
  


That being said: Dave, who exhibits the behavior of a normal teenager about 65% of the time, is restless for the entire week before.

  
  


In your self-obsession you nearly forgot that Dave can be as ruled by his neuroses as he is capable of brushing it off as if it never existed at all.

  
  


For all the times Dave would call Hal or play online games with his other older brother, he hasn’t physically interacted with much less shared a house with Hal since he was almost too young to remember. It’s been a decade, abouts, since Dave knew of the existence of his brothers at all.

  
  


It’s a day before Hal is due to arrive – it’s Saturday. Kankri reports to you that Dave was constantly distracted and didn’t seem able to engage with Karkat very well. You remind Kankri that your brother will be here by tomorrow, but that only makes him look increasingly concerned, so you take Dave home and get ready for whatever is to come.

  
  


That night ends up being a late one. Dave’s too keyed up to sleep, but is also having trouble focusing on his usual activities like playing games or hanging out with his friends or even simply relaxing alone.

  
  


“It’s like,” Dave says as he paces the middle of the living room, yourself perching at the edge of the couch’s arm rest, “my body doesn’t know if it’s excited or if it’s bonkers out of its mind scared?”

  
  


“That’s reasonable,” you try to appease him with, “you haven’t seen him in a real long time, li’l dude. Anybody’d be nervous.”

  
  


“Yea but I feel like I’m fuckin’ crazy,” he says, “I feel like I’m not supposed to feel like this, and it’s messin’ me up inside. It’d be fine if I was just nervous, but it’s like, it’s like –” He hops around in place with manic energy. “It’s like, aaaaaAAA –”

  
  


Caliborn phases into the room faster than you can do something stupid like shove a pillow over Dave’s mouth. “DAVE.”

  
  


Dave’s scream build-up cuts off into a nervous giggle. “Ope, my bad,” he says faux-casually. His whole body is minutely trembling.

  
  


You make heady eye contact with Cal for several long moments. Your heart may glow, but that doesn’t mean that your brain fills with any ideas on how to deal with this situation. You make an esoteric gesture at him.

  
  


Cal turns towards Dave. “DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF. TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. BY YOUR EMOTIONS.”

  
  


You lean back and observe.

  
  


“IF THEY MUST COME OUT, THEN THEY MUST COME OUT.” For a moment you’re afraid that Cal is about to touch Dave, but that passes when he simply sweeps a hand towards the front door. “YOU FEEL AS IF SCREAMING IT OUT MAY HELP. THE FOREST IS ADEPT AT KEEPING SECRETS. EVEN LOUD, OBVIOUS ONES.”

  
  


Oh _god_. He’s telling Dave to go recreationally yelling in the middle of the night. Wow. Fuck, it’s not like you could’ve come up with any better; you’ll let it play out.

  
  


When Dave checks on you as if asking for second permission, you nod. “But not too far, or else someone might hear and think there’s a murder going on.”

  
  


“IT WILL DISCOURAGE HIKERS FROM COMING TOO NEAR.”

  
  


You give Caliborn a droll look for that one.

  
  


You decide that it would be best to leave Dave alone. That logic does nothing to stop the nervous energy from eating up your insides as you watch Dave exit out to the dark driveway. Shit, you should’ve installed a porch light by now. Household wiring can’t be that different from computers and shitty one-trick robots, right?

  
  


“I FEEL HIM CLOSE.” A hot arm winds its way around your shoulders, tugging you away from the couch until you’re coaxed to the kitchen. “HE WILL BE FINE.”

  
  


“Aside from having a ghost-endorsed screaming match with the trees.” You take in what’s going on all over your counter. It seems as if your ghost has found three ingredients to make peanut butter cookies from scratch. “Cookies. At ten. Really.”

  
  


“YOU REQUIRE DISTRACTIONS. AS MUCH AS HE DOES.” He physically takes your hands and then artlessly plops them onto the supplies. “ONCE TIRED, HE WILL APPRECIATE THE EFFORT.”

  
  


“You and your sugar.” Regardless, you wash your hands and get busy.

  
  


It’s somewhat harrowing, the way you can occasionally distantly hear Dave literally screaming his lungs out. You’re not entirely sold on how ‘screaming it out’ is the solution, but you have no others that Dave took to, so you’ll simply have to trust that Caliborn knows where Dave is and will make sure nothing bad happens.

  
  


While you’re putting the tray of cookies into the oven you realize that Dave hasn’t ‘let it all out’ in a few minutes. Getting a bad feeling, you cautiously approach the front door.

  
  


Dave’s sitting on his bench, visibly wracked with the force of his sobs.

  
  


You yank the door open before you can convince yourself to do it any slower. _“Dave.”_

  
  


He doesn’t look up, curling tighter into himself. “’M fine.”

  
  


He’s not fine. You gingerly sit next to him on the bench. He scrubs violently at his face. “Remember – it’s okay to not be fine.”

  
  


“I_ know _that.” Dave sighs deeply, dropping his hands into his lap, no longer hiding his face yet not straightening from his hunched position. “I just psyched myself out I guess.”

  
  


You put a hand on his back. It takes a minute until he voluntarily sits up and moves closer to you. “I know you had a hard time articulating what was wrong earlier, but do you think you can tell me now?”

  
  


“Now that I’ve got a sore throat,” mumbles Dave. Beyond his snuffling you can hear the various ambiance of the evening wildlife. If it were any later in the year, mosquitoes would be swarming.

  
  


“You want a glass of water?”

  
  


“Nah…” He shifts until he’s pressing up against your side, leaning his head onto where your shoulder meets your chest. You try not to make a sound of abject relief. “I mean, at least I don’t feel so spastic anymore.”

  
  


You hum in agreement. “Tell me what you’re worried about. What’s scarin’ you so badly that you can’t play Minecraft with your little girlfriend.”

  
  


It takes him a few minutes of thoughtful silence to answer. “What if… Hal doesn’t like me?”

  
  


A needless worry. “That’s near impossible, I’ll tell you that. Back when I didn’t care to know about you, Hal was the one who thought about you and gave a shit enough to go get you. He loved you before he’d even met you. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here with me right now. Me and him may not always get along, but you’re one reason why I’m grateful he’s my brother. He’s a useful sonuvabitch.”

  
  


Dave’s pleased little smile is there and gone in a flash. “And what about- what happens when stuff starts to change?”

  
  


“What do you mean?” You surreptitiously flick a bug off of your thigh.

  
  


He peers at you, an inscrutable and complicated expression on his face. For a solid minute, he’s silent.

  
  


You don’t interrupt, for all you’d die to know what he’s seeing when he looks at you like this. What he’s thinking.

  
  


Eventually, he shrugs. “I’m just scared of growing up like any other kid, I guess.”

  
  


Immediately you understand that that wasn’t what he wanted to say when you asked for clarification, or when he first worried about change. You don’t know how or _if_ you should call Dave out on it, not without potentially forcing his hand, so you simply say, “I’m sorry, but I might not have any good answers on that front li’l bro. Growin’ up is different for everybody, and it takes more time than you’d expect.”

  
  


“Yea,” Dave breathes out. “I thought so. It’s okay.”

  
  


You are a disappointment. You don’t know how to fix this for him. You simply do nothing at all beyond continuing to hold his back.

  
  


It surprises you when he suddenly says, “I have a weird question that I’m already sorry for thinking about and might not ask at all actually.”

  
  


Well that’s got you curious. “Go ahead.”

  
  


Despite saying he wouldn’t, he goes ahead. “Do you miss where you used to live? Like with Hal and with, with Dad.”

  
  


Your instinctive answer is a curt, “No.”

  
  


Dave says, “Oh,” in a small voice.

  
  


Uncharacteristically, you make yourself think about it a bit more. “...Well. That’s somethin’ of a lie.” Selfishly, you hug Dave close. “I miss the tamale lady.”

  
  


“_Tamale_ lady??”

  
  


“Yea, there was this Mexican lady, a grandma or somethin’, who’d come to the lobby of our apartment and sell her tamales,” you tell him. “I honestly don’t know if she was allowed to do that, but whoever owned the place didn’t seem to care. That or they’d call her over on purpose.”

  
  


From the corner of your eye you can see Dave on the tamale wiki page before he puts his phone back down. “Well now I’m hungry.”

  
  


“I’d go downstairs with money I stole from Dad’s wallet – before I started makin’ my own,” you confess, “and I’d buy us all some tamales. Hal couldn’t have spicy stuff so I made a deal with the tamale lady. She’d make Hal ones with fruit and cream, which I thought was nasty but he seemed to like them. To each their own and all that shit.”

  
  


You absentmindedly curl a lock of Dave’s wispy hair behind his ear. “I’d get Dad some, too. He liked the really hot shit, the ones that had chili baked into the bread so it was red. He never said thanks but he never threw them away, either.”

  
  


“Which ones did you get?”

  
  


“Whatever had the most vegetables in it,” you say, weightier than you meant to.

  
  


The way Dave whispers, “Yea,” could move a greater man to tears. You, a lesser man, simply empathize.

  
  


“I don’t know if it was because I looked pitiful or what, but she started givin’ me these little store-bought rice puddings for free whenever I came by. _Con leche_ or somethin’, I can’t remember properly.”

  
  


“That was nice of her,” Dave says.

  
  


You nod. “It was.” You swipe a bug away from your shirt. You’re not nearly as subtle this time; Dave giggles at your anti-bug antics. “Wonder how she’s doin’.”

  
  


“Well,” Dave shrugs, “at least she doesn’t have to worry about you anymore.”

  
  


“Hah, yea, maybe there’s some new sad sack kid she gives free pudding to now.”

  
  


Dave says something else, but you don’t get to hear it.

  
  


With only a strange static sensation as your warning, you’re abruptly inflicted with double-vision. Your view of the darkened woods and Dave’s body is overlaid with the view of a lit kitchen counter, small brown dollop cookies cooling on the wire rack.

  
  


You physically shake yourself, detracting from Dave in order to palm neurotically at your forehead and eye sockets.

  
  


What the fuck…?

  
  


“Bro? Are you okay?”

  
  


You come back to yourself as if nothing had ever been wrong at all. “Nothing. It’s… I think the cookies are done.”

  
  


“Cookies??” The prospect of cookies utterly snatches what you had of Dave’s attention. He practically drags you inside by the arm.

  
  


While Dave is descending upon the briefly cooled cookies with a ravenous hunger only a solid glass of milk can temper, you sidle up to where Caliborn is haunting the fridge and elbow him. He feels most unnervingly like untenderized meat encased in synthetic plastic instead of skin, fat, and muscle.

  
  


He looks down at you like he has no idea why you’re looking up at him the way you are. Bastard.

  
  


“Couldn’t you have have just walked outside and told me they were ready.” You both watch Dave gobble the treat like he’s never had them before, which is a lie. “What was up with the Force Vision, bara Yoda.”

  
  


“INTERESTING, WAS IT NOT?”

  
  


“That’s one way of putting it,” you say with a lack of reverence.

  
  


“YOU MADE HABITS TO INDULGE IN CONVENIENCE. SUCH IS YOUR NATURE AS YOUNG MEN. IN MODERN TIMES.” He brushes a heated knuckle up under your chin. You are neither cowed nor comforted. “I THOUGHT TO ALLOW YOU ONE MORE CONTRIVANCE.”

  
  


“I’m glad you’ve accepted your place in this household as a glorified esper.” You get a hip pinch for that one. It hardly hurts. Like with a lot of things between you and him, you don’t talk about it. It will come about when it comes about.

  
  


Once Dave’s had as many cookies as you’ll allow (four) his eyes and posture begin to visibly droop even as he pecks away at his phone, talking to multiple people.

  
  


“You think you’ll be able to lay down for a bit?” You run your hand through his hair, standing next to where he sits at the kitchen table in a tired slump.

  
  


“Yeah, I think I’m good.” He turns off his phone and sighs, rubbing at his eyes ungently. “I’m gonna go to bed finally. Fuckin’, talkin’ really took it out of me. Hell with emotions, I’m gonna grow up to be a cactus.”

  
  


When you selfishly follow Dave upstairs to make sure he gets into bed alright, a task that involves him claiming that he’s “not a baby” at least twice despite not exactly sending you away, he pauses before he’s fully under the covers.

  
  


You ask him what’s wrong.

  
  


He gives you a highly concerned look. “Is Hall gonna steal my bed? Because I’m not afraid to throw down just to keep my bed. Quote me so that he knows this.”

  
  


You tell him that you won’t let Hal steal his bed, and he finally goes the fuck to sleep. You shut his door softly.

  
  


At the end of the hallway underneath a hidden hatch in the ceiling stands Caliborn, his stare truly all-knowing to the point of impossibility.

  
  


It’s inevitable where you end up that night.

  
  


When Caliborn sinks you, you aren’t aware enough to know where he takes your shared body. For once, you don’t care to be. You can tell that there’s something about it that disappoints him, but he chooses to not bring these grievances up with you, which is either a boon or a caveat depending on how the future will play out.

  
  


You wake up at sunrise with him sitting in bed next to you all the same, and that’s enough for you.

* * *

About an hour before Hal is set to touch down (he insists upon renting his own car and driving over, which is fine by you. There’s a reason why when you ran, you drove. Airports sound nuts.) Dave helps you put out the laundry to dry.

  
  


Spring is a rough time for doing laundry – it’s finally warm enough to prevent the living room from becoming a laundromat where everybody has to practically crawl on the floor to avoid getting literally clothes-lined, but it’s also sporadically rainy enough that drying outside is a bargain more often than not.

  
  


Thankfully, today is set to be a perfect one in terms of weather. Fluffy white clouds float in the bright blue sky at a moderate pace, making down below not too windy or too stuffy.

  
  


But that’s not the only reason. Yesterday was comparatively a better day to do laundry, considering how it was several degrees warmer. You want Hal to get the full-frontal ‘we live in the woods’ affect – you want to strike fear into his city heart.

  
  


That’s right motherfucker, y’all still don’t have a washer or dryer. Suffer.

  
  


Although Dave is fine with helping, considering how he still has an entire field trip bus of excited children’s worth of energy to work out, Caliborn has beef with how you’re ‘conducting our household.’ His words, definitely not yours.

  
  


“THESE WILL NOT BE DRY IN TIME.” Caliborn postures next to the nearest laundry pole, hands on his hips. It’s funny to see him this worked up. “TAKE THEM INSIDE. I WILL DRY THEM FOR YOU BY HAND. YOU NEED NOT EXERT YOURSELF IN THIS WAY. YOUR HISTRIONICS WILL GET THE BETTER OF YOU. BY THE DAY’S END.”

  
  


Dave is too far away, wrestling with a white sheet in the wind, to hear the conversation. “Please chill out – if you’re trying to impress my brother, it’s not gonna happen.” You gesture back at the house, its vines of pink morning glories already curling protectively inward as the day middles. “It’s a cute house, great even with a little elbow grease put into it, but my brother’s a city guy. He’s got robot arms, for fuck’s sake. He’s like if Botley from Jumpstart Third Grade went cyberpunk.”

  
  


Cal is squinting at the house, not yet looking back towards you or acknowledging your sick burn. Rude ass. “PERHAPS WE SHOULD HAVE PAINTED IT WHITE. LIKE IT USED TO BE.”

  
  


Helplessly, you try to envision it. Something about it cracks you.

  
  


You start to laugh in a way that you can’t stop, physically having to lean over onto Caliborn’s chest to keep yourself up and breathing. “Li’l Bo Peep shit, I don’t fuckin’ think so. Jesus himself wept, Cal, we are _not _painting the house white.”

  
  


Cal looks down at you like he has no idea what to do with you in this state. It only makes you laugh harder.

  
  


You must be louder than thought because Dave perks up and forgets to keep the sheet in place, shouting, “CAN WE PAINT IT PINK??” over the distance and wind.

  
  


When his sheet inevitably becomes unpinned and flies loose, gaining height, Cal makes a noise of infinite unrest, one hand across your back as he waves the other in the air. The sheet returns down to the earth, where Dave hops around and catches it.

  
  


After your laughing fit finally peters out and you get the rest of the laundry up, you feel strangely exhausted. Something about the way you freely gave way to hysterics makes you wonder if you sounded unhinged. You’re self-conscious of the way Cal had looked at you. Dave didn’t show any signs of distress. Then again, maybe he was too far away to notice.

  
  


While Dave endures near-constant mania, perhaps you’re the opposite.

  
  


You take something for the headache you develop. You end up laying on the couch, unable to convince yourself to stay awake when your body so obviously doesn’t want to, but determined to be at the door when Hal arrives. Dave seems content to be in his room, probably looking out his window every five minutes.

  
  


When you snap awake an hour and a half later, it’s to the instantaneous knowledge that Hal is currently halfway down the driveway, thus breaching your terrortor–

  
  


What?

  
  


As you sit up in mild confusion, you peel off the somewhat sweaty blanket someone laid on you. Cal steps out of the camouflaging sunlight streaming in from the front windows.

  
  


You look him up and down. “Maybe it’d be best if we let Hal and Dave get acquainted before you introduce yourself.”

  
  


He rests his palm on the crown of your head, dusting you in a heat your clammy body does not entirely appreciate right now. You shiver all over once. “IF THAT IS YOUR DECISION.”

  
  


Caliborn vanishes from sight and sense. In your chest, however, a part of him glows.

  
  


Well, that was surprisingly easy. It’ll probably be one of the only things like that today.

  
  


You decide not to wind Dave up by alerting him. He’ll see Hal’s car once it hits the treeline, possibly even earlier than that with how much of the driveway can be viewed from Dave’s window. He can choose when or even if he comes downstairs.

  
  


Hal pulls up eleven minutes later with much less fanfare than he did the first time. You blame it on the lack of motorbike.

  
  


Steeling yourself with a deep breath and a moment to yourself with your eyes closed and your chest hot, you open the front door and step out.

  
  


The fresh warming wind tempts you to calm yourself even as your insides jump horridly at the sight of Hal extracting himself from the light blue rental car. In the sunshine his short, bleached hair is overly bright, and the intricate grooves of his bare black arms shine with every turn he makes.

  
  


Despite your anxiety, something in you eases at the sight of him, the familiar outline of his face and body even from this far away. That’s Hal. That’s your brother.

  
  


Thank god. Thank _god._

  
  


Any budding feelings are immediately ruined by how he pops the trunk, acts like he’s hunting deeply inside for something, then pulls out his middle finger and jovially waggles it at you.

  
  


Ah. Right. That’s _Hal._

  
  


“Don’t just stand there, Dirk.” And he’s already bitching about the things you do. Great. “Come help me.”

  
  


With a roll of your neck, you get over there and help him haul his bags out of the trunk. He has quite a few of them.

  
  


“How long are you plannin’ on stayin’?” You can’t help but complain as you put his fourth bag onto the gravel. It weighs a damn ton.

  
  


“As long as I need to.” Hal grabs two handles and begins marching towards the front door as if he lives here. “Oh don’t give me that look, you big baby. One of these has presents in it.”

  
  


Not wanting to turn this into a disaster any faster than it needs to, you graciously shut your mouth and follow him inside.

  
  


As if called by the lure of presents alone, you can immediately spot Dave creeping around the stairs. He looks tense. He sits down on a step at the bottom and huddles near the wall, observing blankly from behind his shades.

  
  


You don’t give away his position.

  
  


Hal is busy abandoning his bags by the couch and spinning slowly, getting a good gander at the living room and partially into the kitchen nook. “I suppose you’ve done your best to give this place a sort of homey, bumpkin look to it. The best you could do, I presume.”

  
  


You plop his smallest bag onto the couch itself, rolling the final suitcase up against his others. The track of dust from the gravel following the wheels in silently burns away as if it never existed at all. “Nice to see you too, Hal.”

  
  


Hal pivots away from where he’s staring down at the kitschy 60’s shade upturned on the side table near the entrance way, full of keys and also holes. He gives you a look that grandly conveys ‘what the fuck is this thing’ but when you don’t take the bait, his expression turns into exasperation.

  
  


He holds open his arms. “Come here and give me a hug. I’m not a fucking leper.”

  
  


Reluctantly, you step in and give him a hug.

  
  


It’s not as bad as you were expecting it to be. Hal squeezes a little too hard, but that could simply be due to the naturally stiff material his arms are made out of. You’re used to hugging people shorter or taller than you, so there’s an awkward moment where you forget to put your head to the side, nearly colliding faces.

  
  


“Wow, didn’t think you missed me _that_ much,” he quips into your ear. You don’t deign him with a response.

  
  


He keeps you trapped in the hug for far longer than you consider necessary. You don’t give your all in fighting against it, mostly because Dave is watching everything y’all do, but you can feel the artificial strength of his arms, and suddenly you begin to doubt that you’d be able to fight him off at all, a thought that doesn’t scare you so much as resign you.

  
  


Hal once mentioned that his arm upkeep had fallen to his body-building and robot-wrassling boyfriend. About how Equius gave him updates as the years went on and technology advanced.

  
  


Thankfully, he lets go before you can truly think yourself into a hole of panic, stepping back yet keeping his cold hands on both of your shoulders. He stares at you. You return in kind.

  
  


Over his head glare red eyes that rapidly fade into the light. You pretend you don’t see them.

  
  


He’s got a new scar on the bottom of his chin, something small and nearly invisible. You wonder how he got it. His hair looks amazing, but you’ll decline to let him know that. Once you really get to looking, you note that he has eye makeup on, a thin geometric line of bright crimson at the corner of each lid.

  
  


“You look better than when I was last here. The long hair suits you. Dad would have despised it,” is all he says before letting you go.

  
  


It may be worded like a compliment, yet you feel inadequate in ways you cannot put a finger on.

  
  


When Hal then says, “Wow, look at you!” you know that he’s spotted Dave hiding near the bottom of the steps due to how his voice changes from flat to perky. Poser. “You certainly aren’t twenty pounds and three feet tall anymore.”

  
  


“I’d hope not. I’m a lean mean teen aged machine, dawg.” Dave stands up and moves towards the center of the room. Hal, who appears to be focused solely on Dave, doesn’t seem to notice the front door closing behind him without anyone there to shut it. There’s something glassy in his eyes.

  
  


Out of the corner of your mouth you whisper, “Don’t cry.” If Hal cries, then Dave will definitely also cry, and then you’ll have to go ballistic or something equally reasonable.

  
  


Hal’s dark eyes briefly flick to you then away, his expression frozen on a genial smile that you don’t believe for a second. “I cannot.”

  
  


That’s not the weirdest thing he could’ve possibly said; you let it drop.

  
  


“Your arms are bigger. I think,” Dave says in a way that let’s you know that he doesn’t know what to do and is covering it up by simply saying the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you dye your hair or is it just like yellow like that. Like not to be a skeptic but my friend Rose tried really hard to convince me that her eyes were literally purple and I only fell for it until I was yesterday years old and realized colored contacts were a thing.”

  
  


Oh Dave.

  
  


“Yes, they are bigger. I had to make room for the miniature rockets I wanted to carry inside them.” Hal winks very obviously. “And yes – my hair is not naturally bright yellow. Unlike you, it takes money for me to go blond. Although I’m lucky: the best barber in the world _cuts_ me a deal.”

  
  


You resist the urge to cover your face and hide under a rock somewhere.

  
  


“I’ll take your stuff up to my room,” you announce at large, already grabbing the handles of the three biggest bags. Fuck it – one trip. Your days of grocery shopping for a family of two plus the Vantases has prepared you for this. “Dave, don’t be shy. If Hal does anything just scream and you know what’ll happen to him.”

  
  


Dave mumbles a perfunctory, “I’m not shy,” and then proceeds to inch his way towards the couch as nervously as possible, timidly sitting down at the end farthest from Hal.

  
  


Before you enter your room and can no longer see over the railing, Hal sits down at the other end.

  
  


Caliborn’s in your room. You plop Hal’s shit down onto the floor at the end of the bed and head directly towards him.

  
  


Before he can say anything, you bury your face into his chest and whisper-scream, _“Aaaaaaaaaaa!”_ You don’t actually scream since you aren’t entirely positive he’s got the same physicality and noise-cushioning affect as, say, a pillow does. But god do you want to.

  
  


When you detach, he looks inordinately self-satisfied. “SEE? THE SCREAMING. IT HELPS.”

  
  


You breathe in and out steadily a few times to ensure you don’t go crazy on his ass or some other emotionally unstable response. “I gotta get back down there, who knows what Hal could be telling Dave.”

  
  


Cal seems content to let you leave, which makes you think he’s getting front row seats no matter where in the house he lingers.

  
  


You come back down to the scene of Hal saying, “I’m sorry Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.” You involuntarily experience flashbacks to a movie so re-watched and so quoted that you had dreams about it regularly for years. You get fuckor sweats.

  
  


Dave, just trying to offer Hal some of the peanut butter cookies from last night, is mighty confused. “Okay? Sorry? Is it the peanuts? It’s the peanuts isn’t it.”

  
  


Hal turns towards you and says accusingly, “Dirk, you horse’s ass, he hasn’t watched 2001 yet? Shame on you.”

  
  


You like horses. His language is unacceptable. You throw one hand up. “It’s got too much… violence in it or something, I don’t know. It’s old as balls, man, it’s time to let it go.”

  
  


Dave begins to nervously laugh at the two of you, twisting back and forth as if thinking, ‘is this seriously what y’all are like?’

  
  


Unfortunately the answer to that is ‘yes.’

  
  


“The cookies are flour-less,” you say as you make it to the first floor and nothing’s blown up. “Eat one or else Dave might die from sadness.”

  
  


Dave looks at you like he doesn’t understand the words that are coming out of your mouth. “No I won’t, it’s just a cookie that I contributed nothing into making because I’m a useless member of society. What happened in 2001?”

  
  


Hal finally takes a cookie from Dave, but instead of eating it he uses it like a baton while he jabbers. “2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie from 1968 directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written by Arthur C. Clarke. Its main characters are a man named Dave and an AI named HAL 9000. HAL controls the spaceship Dave and some other unimportant side-characters take to reach a phenomenon called the monolith.”

  
  


You roll your eyes at Hal’s biased summary. “There’s also twenty minutes of people in monkey suits screaming and beating on each other before you get to the actual movie part, which in accordance with the 60s, is full of epilepsy-inducing bad trips.”

  
  


Dave’s interested expression fades somewhat. “Oh, uh… Are you named after the HAL 9000 robit?”

  
  


Hal says, “Yes,” right as you say, “No.”

  
  


“Am I named after the Dave guy?” Dave asks with half a cookie in his mouth despite supposedly having brought it over for Hal.

  
  


Neither your nor Hal have an immediate answer this time. You both exchange loaded glances.

  
  


Dave starts to show signs of being a little shaken, so you say, “It’s probably a coincidence,” just to say anything at all.

  
  


“That’s right,” Hal agrees, “I don’t recall Dad being a fan of it. Perhaps we have family names, but due to a lack of family for which to ask, we simply didn’t know it.”

  
  


When Dave looks to you for guidance, you nod even though you have no idea whether it’s true or not.

  
  


Hal uses his big mouth to eat the cookie in one bite, something that seems to both fascinate and disgust Dave, who tries to copy him and then chokes hard enough that you fearfully get him something to drink.

  
  


After that it’s like somebody’s birthday with how much shit Hal manages to pull out of the little bag he brought along. Most of it goes to Dave – kits to make homemade bubble tea with, little trinkets and candies, so on so forth – but you’re surprised by the t-shirt Hal violently lobs at your face.

  
  


It’s Nepeta’s cat cafe, of which you can only tell due to the familiar blue cap sitting at the top of the logo. Neat. You guess. Yea you’re never gonna wear this thing.

  
  


“So do you, like, feel anything?” Dave asks when, instead of taking the packet of something Hal holds out to him, he bypasses it and grabs Hal’s hand. “Waitwaitwait was that ableist? Sorry, I was at my best bro’s the other day and his older brother can give lectures that break me out into sweats and I’m still not recovered.”

  
  


“It’s alright, Dave. I encourage any questions you may have.” Hal flips Dave’s hand over and tickles the palm gently, causing Dave to spasm and yank it back with a giggle. “My arms don’t feel the way you’re familiar with, no, but I do retain sensory input that’s connected to gauging how much strength is needed to, say, pick up someone’s hand without accidentally dropping it or crushing it.”

  
  


“_Can_ you crush somebody’s hand?”

  
  


“I don’t know yet! Let’s run the first trial. You can be the control group and Dirk can be the experimental group.” Hal reaches over where you’re awkwardly standing next to the couch and nabs your hand. An artificial crunching noise sounds despite there being next to no pain.

  
  


Dave screams shortly with genuine fear, launching himself to separate you two only to find your hand completely fine, instantly killing that joke right then and there. Thankfully, Hal decides that he’s tired and would like to have that post-flight nap now. You lead him upstairs.

  
  


As you expected, Caliborn isn’t hanging around in your room anymore. The window which was previously closed is now open, however, which somehow manages to draw Hal’s ire.

  
  


“You don’t have any window screens. That’s either pitiful or ballsy.” Hal sticks his entire head out the window. You resist the urge to ‘playfully’ shove him out. “How the hell do you keep bugs from getting in.”

  
  


You blow a bubble of the soda-flavored gum Dave snuck to you while Hal’s back was turned. “We don’t.”

  
  


Hal raises one dubious eyebrow at you. “Don’t pretend you’re no longer terrified of bugs. I can practically smell _e__u de _Entomophobia on you, Dirk.”

  
  


You simply shrug. “Are you napping or what.”

  
  


He snorts at something you aren’t going to exert the energy to examine, already shucking off his pants like it’s been a few days since you last shared a room with him and not ten years. “Only if you would be so kind as to help me set up, ‘Bro.’”

  
  


It turns out Hal’s boyfriend has sent along a compact charging station that they designed together. It doesn’t take long to set up, but it does look quite complex, a fact which Hal’s smug silence refuses to let you forget. Honestly, all you can think about is what a bitch it must have been to get through customs.

  
  


It’s got a receptacle that looks like it enables Hal to take off one or both arms on his own, and possibly even get them back on alone as well, though your brother doesn’t bother demonstrating this considering how he simply twists and yanks the left arm out of socket himself. He sets it on the plugged-in rack – it begins to glow a soft red.

  
  


Huh. Wireless charging. Savvy.

  
  


“Why not take them both off?” You ask once you see Hal getting into bed with one arm still on. You remember from his complaining during the initial test runs that it isn’t comfortable.

  
  


Hal says, “In case I’m needed.” You can’t find it in you to argue against that. “I’ll warn you now – I’m awful to cuddle with when I’ve got an arm on. It really is like laying on a brick. If I throw an elbow in the middle of the night somebody always gets knocked out of bed.”

  
  


“It feels redundant to point out that no cuddling will be taking place,” you say, pulling your door shut without fanfare, negating anything he says next.

  
  


You are the best brother. It is you.

  
  


You go back downstairs for a lack of any other places to be. It belatedly makes you realize how long you spent fucking around talking about useless shit with Hal and ‘helping’ him set up his weird arm holder by how Dave appears comatose on the couch.

  
  


Around him is a detritus of open wrappers and some crumbs. When you lean down to feel his pulse on instinct, he lets out a very awake groan.

  
  


You shake your head at him. “Too many Japanese candies, huh.”

  
  


He groans a word at you that you can’t parse. You roll him over onto his back.

  
  


“I told myself I’d space it ouuut, but I liiied,” he warbles, hands reaching and making grabby motions at you.

  
  


For a kid who complains about not being little anymore, he sure doesn’t kick up a fuss when you carry him upstairs to his room so that he can sleep his stomach ache off in comfort. You leave him with a bottle of ginger tea.

  
  


Feeling bereft of motion, you leave your sleeping housemates to their snoozing and go outside to check on the laundry.

  
  


Reading your intentions, Cal meets you there. You see in your mind’s eye yourself leaping into his arms and dramatically declaring how awful it is pretending he doesn’t literally haunt your house, but as funny as that would be you restrain yourself. Can’t have Hal waking up, coming outside, and spoiling the surprise early.

  
  


Hidden behind fluttering white sheets, you and Cal have nonverbal conversations dipped in molten heartbeats that require little coherency yet convey much.

* * *

Having your twin essentially living with you for an unlabeled amount of time is both easier and harder than you thought it would be.

  
  


The easiest part comes with how he predictably steals your shampoo.

  
  


The hardest part has yet to be acknowledged.

  
  


Dave spends most of his time at school or at someone else’s house, which greatly reduces his likelihood of witnessing you and Hal sniping at each other, but it also makes the hours you and Hal mutually ignore each other much less bearable overall. Hal reports that he has increasing work to do, sequestering himself in your room as he sees fit, which is often.

  
  


You and Caliborn are sneaking around like opportunistic teenagers, a feat you’re much familiar with, considering your own teenager. You discuss possibilities with few words – you’ve gotten adept at being sunk into a shared space with little outward affect.

  
  


On one day when Dave spends a night at Karkat’s, you even get brave enough to allow Cal to possess you for nearly the entire time.

  
  


Hal, who ignores you in favor of rapidly typing on his laptop and occasionally taking short walks, doesn’t notice a thing.

  
  


Cal is particularly pleased by this. You admit to feeling giddy about it as well – sometimes it’s simply like existing while less alone, neither a push nor pull against your own self-control or decision-making. It’s easier to get away with now that you’re back to sleeping on the futon downstairs and continue to be the earliest riser.

  
  


The tension, unsurprisingly, does not abate once Hal is actually in the house.

  
  


It’s a whole host of ‘hurry up and wait.’ Hurry up and wait to introduce Caliborn, hurry up and wait for Hal to drop whatever bomb he brought with him from over the ocean, hurry up and wait for you to try each other’s patience to the point of breaking.

  
  


It feels like it’ll never come. Another day slides by between Hal arriving on the 1st and the house party in need of preparation on the 13th. It’s on John’s thirteenth birthday, coincidentally, and a Saturday, conveniently, giving everybody a little more leeway on flying here and flying home.

  
  


Needless to say, you’re not a lick more prepared than you were a week before. Cal keeps trying to give you pointers, but they sound like the kind of shit Victorians or something would do to prepare for a house party.

  
  


In hushed whispers as you make sure the last of the peanut butter is locked away into your bedroom filing cabinet, you desperately remind Cal that this party will be mainly catering to teenagers. Teens who won’t give a solid nor runny shit about whether or not the napkins all match or if the displayed furniture is ‘tasteful.’

  
  


Dave is, of course, excited as all fuck, though it’s dampened somewhat by how he hasn’t fully adjusted to the new housemate. For all intents and purposes, Hal acts like a well-behaved hermit (especially considering his past behavior) but that doesn’t stop Dave from faltering in natural interactions with him.

  
  


At least twice do you get underhanded texts from Dave asking you why Hal ‘acts so weird.’ You still haven’t found a tacit way to answer that.

  
  


And you swear to god that every single time Dave needs something from you, Hal suddenly decides that he will absolutely implode without your every speck of attention.

  
  


“Hey _C–_ Uh, hey _Bro?”_ Dave’s voice falteringly calls from upstairs while you’re making sure you have enough multi-colored recyclable plastic cups. You still aren’t positive that you’re not going to be spending the entire party obsessively making sure recycling goes in recycling, trash goes in trash, and compost goes in compost. You’re not afraid to use a squirt bottle if anybody turns up acting like a heathen.

  
  


You’re about to turn around and call back when Hal is suddenly _there_ as if having teleported, leaning on the kitchen counter.

  
  


He opens his mouth nice and wide. “I’ve got a question for you.”

  
  


Ugh.

  
  


You say, “Hang on,” instead of, “fuck off,” and then walk to the bottom of the stairs. “What is it, Dave.”

  
  


Dave pokes his head out of his room. You can practically feel Hal hovering over your shoulder, staring holes into the back of your head.

  
  


“Have you seen my bougie pink tee that says ‘I killed the teenage dream’ on it?”

  
  


You haven’t. “Where did you last see it?” You ask even though that particular question tends to lead nowhere. Dave is old enough to be in charge of cleaning his own room.

  
  


Dave shrugs. “I’unno, in the laundry or something’? I wanna wear it on Saturday because,” he mumbles something you can’t hear.

  
  


You’re about to say, “You need to speak up,” when Hal comes around your side and drapes himself over the banister.

  
  


_Ugh._

  
  


“Are you by chance particularly close with the patriarch of this town’s little Captor family?” Hal questions, self-importance gaudily drowning every syllable.

  
  


You give him a solid glare. Upstairs, Dave is rapidly looking between the two of you like he doesn’t know if he can interrupt or not. He shrugs, then disappears back into his room, presumably to keep hunting.

  
  


“I’m busy helping Dave look for his shirt.” You try to shove past Hal as politely as possible, which may be not at all.

  
  


He steps in front of you. “I’m sure Dave is perfectly capable of finding his trendy clothes on his own. He’s not an infant.”

  
  


You pause. “He’s not. But he asked for help.”

  
  


“No, he simply asked if you’d _seen_ it.” Hal gives you a poignant look that threatens to steer you away from your task through psychic ability alone. “It is pertinent that you answer my question, Dirk. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten it.”

  
  


Breathe in. Breathe out. Your chest warms itself. “No, we’re not close. I don’t even know his first name. Sometimes I drive the kids over to his neck of the woods.” You shrug. “Skateboard with his brain-damaged adult son. You know, the usual stuff.”

  
  


As Hal’s opening his mouth to say something you’ll likely not wanna hear, Dave shouts, “I found it!!”

  
  


“Where was it?” You call back.

  
  


Hal looks at you like you’re a fucking disgrace for raising your voice. You don’t acknowledge him.

  
  


“Uhhhhhhh,” says Dave, which you translate to ‘Cal found it but I’m not allowed to say that.’ “It was under some. Some stuff.”

  
  


Dave shuts his door. You try not to be overly amused at his embarrassment, considering your own wish-washy indecisiveness is what landed him in these situations in the first place.

  
  


Hal doesn’t bring up the Captors again. During dinner (“Seriously. You caught this thing yourself? What has Oregon done to you, Dirk.” - “Shut up and eat the fuckin’ fish, Hal.”) he tries his hand at telling funny tales from your shared childhood, only to find that well understandably dry. He then switches to talking about the cat cafe and basically anything that keeps the attention on him.

  
  


You’re content to let him yammer – he entertains Dave eight times out of ten, at least, even if most of the yarn he spins is exaggerated or sometimes downright false.

  
  


“I did not electrocute him on purpose,” you say, for once speaking up in between Hal and Dave’s chatter. “Roxy wouldn’t have let me.”

  
  


“He had a smile on his face,” Hal tells an enraptured Dave, fork flicking everywhere as if there isn’t a morsel of fish speared at the end. “That bastard knew what he was doing when he tried to put my arm socket in during the alpha tests. He was cutthroat when he was a teenager.”

  
  


“It was my first prosthetic limb. I made mistakes. Some electricity happened where it shouldn’t have. Let me live a little.” You shove too much broccoli mac n’ cheese in your mouth to avoid letting the smirk show. “Functioned, didn’t it?”

  
  


“Only because of Roxy.” Hal finally eats the piece of fish, but it’s done smugly somehow, which isn’t a thing you thought possible, and yet here he is, the shining example.

  
  


His plate is a little sparse – he can’t have dairy and you forgot to get the gluten-free pasta shells. He brought some nutrition supplements with him, but he’s coming to the grocery with you next time to make sure you can actually feed him while he’s here.

  
  


“What the fuck,” says Dave, periodically forgetting to continue eating with how often his mouth is running. You helpfully tap at the table near his plate until he takes another bite. “I didn’t know you literally built his arms? How the hell did you do that?? Wasn’t it like, a long time ago when everything was shittier in technology land and libraries didn’t have free 3D printers yet?”

  
  


You and Hal meet eyes across the table, a tangible shared thought of _‘oh god we’re getting old’_ once you both realize Dave is referring to the mid-2010’s as ‘a long time ago.’

  
  


“And uh, how did he lose his arms anyway?”

  
  


Executing the ‘Twin Telepathy’ protocol, you and Hal mutually decide to shut down that conversation for the time being.

  
  


Soon after, you send Dave to bed. Without Cal being able to pop up and tell you when Dave’s doing something he shouldn’t – like, say, gaming all night when he has a test in the morning – you’re stricter on Dave’s bedtime for now.

  
  


While you’re upstairs changing into something to sleep in, which is basically just a rotation from your tank and sweats into a stupidsoft t-shirt and shorts, Hal looks up from his laptop where he sits cross-legged on the bed.

  
  


He doesn’t look away.

  
  


You sigh. “What.”

  
  


“I was only wondering why you insist on going to bed so early.” Hal shuts his laptop slightly so that the screen isn’t glaring into his eyes. The glasses he’s wearing get left around his neck where they dangle from a simple beaded chain. He looks oddly domestic and mature. “Perhaps I’m still stuck in my old perspective of you, but the Dirk I knew could be found awake for nearly seventy hours straight before crashing.”

  
  


You scratch at the back of your silk wrap where your scalp lightly aches from having your hair pulled up all day. “I’ve got a routine. Dave’s got school.”

  
  


Hal doesn’t sound very impressed when he says, “Right. Dave’s school. You know, by his age we had already graduated beyond that weaksauce shit and moved to online college, of which we got free tuition to. Hell, you were even taking internet jobs for cash.”

  
  


“He’s not an idiot if that’s what you’re insinuating,” you bite out, defensive. “School is where his friends are. He likes it. Not everybody grows up spiteful and lonely.”

  
  


The ‘like you did’ goes unsaid except for the tightening around Hal’s unsmiling eyes.

  
  


“Wow, calm down papa bear,” Hal smarms. “I was simply imparting some healthy criticism. I’ve seen Dave’s records and I’m afraid I have to say, criticism and proper intellectual encouragement seems to be something he lacks.”

  
  


The ‘because of you’ goes unsaid except for the way you basically stomp from the room.

  
  


The door shuts behind you without you needing to physically close it. You don’t stick around to see if Hal notices, and if he does, what he thinks about it.

  
  


You moodily throw yourself upon the made-up futon, an action which you immediately regret with how your back punishes you. After a few years in a soft bed, you forgot what it was like to slum it like a stubborn moron who felt the need to neurotically keep an eye on the entrance. You waste time cussing out your past self.

  
  


It’s dark. Lonely. Every day gives you bad ideas, your worst yet being a fantasy where you say ‘fuck this shit’ and crawl up into the attic. But you won’t do that – it feels sacrilegious to even think about going up there again so soon. You haven’t exactly brought it up with Caliborn, either, though you’re sure he has at least an inkling about it.

  
  


Without Cal here to initially guide you down, you’re stuck with having to do it yourself until a certain point. Unwillingly, you consider what Hal was implying.

  
  


Dave does tend to have the worst grades in the classes he has the most friends in – this is a pattern you yourself have noticed. He once brought home a D. Cal was tetchier about that than you were, now that you think about it.

  
  


It makes you feel like maybe you should be a bit harder– no, more _encouraging_ of Dave to do better in school. School’s never not come easy to you except during the in-person side of education, so you don’t know how to help him with the idea of not being able to concentrate.

  
  


Selfishly, you want your kid to have fun, not suffer boredom and frustration his entire childhood just to get better grades. So take that, Hal. It’s not your fault he’s been snooping in your little brother’s recorded report cards and has opinions about it.

  
  


You huffily turn over and go to sleep.

* * *

You’re finishing up mopping the kitchen floors (a task Cal damn near shamed you into) when Dave has a call with Terezi on speakerphone in the living room. Hal is gone to the post office for unspecified reasons.

  
  


Naturally, you listen in. If Dave didn’t want you to hear, he’d’ve done it in his room or flat out told you to go somewhere else.

  
  


“Listen, Dave, you can tell by how I worded this how sorry I am, but I can’t come to your boo-boo kazoo party,” Terezi’s voice drolly reports. “Vriska doesn’t want to get cozy with that many new people at once, and I kind of agree with her. We just don’t know your online friends as well as you and KatKat do. I think it would be weird.”

  
  


“That’s dumb but I know I can’t tell you otherwise because you think whatever Vriska says is also the word of god herself so okay.” Dave sounds like an expert mix of indignancy and apathy.

  
  


Terezi sighs loudly and theatrically into the receiver, which you think is a worthy response to Dave’s own dramatics. “Oh shut up you brat. At least you’ll have KatKat there.”

  
  


Dave doesn’t say anything.

  
  


“Hell-_o__?_ Karkat _is_ going, right? He wouldn’t stop talking about it a week ago. Kanaya threatened to get ear plugs.”

  
  


Dave says, “He said he would,” but he sounds so doubtful that he probably doesn’t believe a word of it.

  
  


“Did you two have another argument?” Terezi asks in a tone of voice that suggests she doesn’t actually want to know, and asking is performative.

  
  


“It’s not really an argument, it’s… Idk.”

  
  


“Hold on, I’ll get Kanaya,” says the girl who just said that Kanaya once threatened to physically block Karkat’s spoken problems out. “KANAYA!” What sounds like Terezi running pellmell through her house. You feel bad for her mother. “KANAYAAYA!!!!!! KANAAAAAAAAAAAAAA –“

  
  


“Terezi, _please_ stop shouting,” admonishes Rosa’s muffled voice. “Your sister is over at Sollux’s house today. Do you need to call her?”

  
  


“No thanks, mama, it’s okay.” More feet-pattering noises. “Did you hear that,” Terezi breathes over-loud into the phone.

  
  


“Yea.” You can practically feel the downtrodden energies radiating off of Dave from delivery alone. “That’s where Karkat’s at today, too.”

  
  


The call ends on a bummed note, with Dave hanging up earlier than he normally would. He doesn’t even ‘jokingly’ roleplay dragons with Terezi.

  
  


While you’re in the middle of cleaning up the excess water, Dave comes plodding in, seemingly uncaring of the puddle he schleps through. “I made bad choices and suffer the consequences. Hug me.”

  
  


“Okay.” You hug him.

  
  


Hal walks in the front door. “IIII’m baack, Strider Clan!” Despite claiming to hate the stupid 60s shade with the fiery rage of good taste itself, he drops his keys into it by the entrance way. “What’s– Oh.”

  
  


He stops at the threshold between wooden floor and wet linoleum.

  
  


You casually cock your head up at him. “Sup.”

  
  


“Come hug me,” says Dave, his voice closing in on crying but not quite making it. “Don’t just look at me, get in on this- this shit, okay, just hug me. You wanna be in this family unit you gotta subject yourself to the mortify- mort- m- FUCKING ordeal of loving and being loved.”

  
  


Hal, looking the most lost you’ve seen him since he got here, toes into the sheath of water on the floor and squeezes Dave in between himself and yourself, making a tremendously awkward sandwich.

  
  


“There there,” he says robotically. Since Dave is taking up space between the two of you, you’re practically staring each other in the face. It is not comfortable. “You can always replace Dirk with a particularly large and stern-looking dog that has the heart of a golden apple and it will be like hardly anything’s changed.”

  
  


Dave lets out a wet laugh. “Bro didn’t do anything, it’s just… Some of my friends can’t come over on Saturday and I got really sappy about it suddenly.”

  
  


“I know it sucks,” you say as you pet Dave’s hair, accidentally brushing up against Hal’s arm with each run through, “but look on the bright side: Karkat and Terezi still live real close. Maybe you can think of this weekend as time for just you and the friends you don’t get to see as often.”

  
  


Dave mumbles, “Yea, okay,” pressing his face into your chest.

  
  


Hal looks like he would like to move away now, but doesn’t. What a champ.

  
  


A pressing, almost too-hot weight settles against your back, wrapping fully around you and Dave.

  
  


You startle, but only because you’re afraid Caliborn is visible in some way. When you surreptitiously glance around, you see no signs of green, and so you relax as if this abrupt warm spot is normal and nothing to be alarmed about.

  
  


Despite your efforts and Dave’s relaxed cuddling, Hal appears to be quickly approaching alarmed anyways. Shit.

  
  


“What’s wrong.” You look Hal in the eyes as if a dare. “You don’t have to do this if you’re uncomfortable.”

  
  


Dave rears back like he’s been pinched. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to like, force you into hugging me? Oh man what if I _am_ like the guys Terezi says she hates…”

  
  


Hal steps away with an odd look on his face, shaking both of his arms out slowly. “No, don’t worry about that, Dave. I’ve simply encountered a problem with my super cool high tech multi-fail safe limbs that I wasn’t exactly predicting for this season.”

  
  


With one hand kept possessively on Dave’s shoulder, mimicking the position of the heat trailing towards the same spot as if you can visualize Cal’s claws on top of your own, you study Hal’s reactions.

  
  


It’s almost as if his arms are steaming, or close to it. Several red lights blink on and off, exposing the tech’s secret underbellies whereas normally they’re pure black with several indentations at the joints.

  
  


“They are overheating. How strange,” Hal says clinically, pinpoint heel turning and marching quickly up the stairs to your bedroom.

  
  


“OOPS.” Cal fades into the artificial lighting of the kitchen. “I DID NOT BREAK THE TIN MAN. DID I?”

  
  


“I doubt it.” You let Dave go only to draw him back in once you look down and realize how discomfited he is. “I’m sure Hal knows what to do.”

  
  


Dave nods, then asks why the hell the floor is so fuckin’ wet.

  
  


With only three days to go until your first arrival, you rapidly check things off of your list. ‘Make sure Karkat actually joins and Dave doesn’t run him off right before the party’ was unfortunately too long to fit on your physical list, but regardless it remains unchecked.

* * *

It’s Friday. Jade should be at the airport at around eight in the evening. Hal has offered to take Dave with him to go get her, which you’re grateful for, though you don’t say it.

  
  


Meanwhile, it’s several hours before that little trip will go down. You’re busy frosting some cupcakes that Kankri sent you the recipe to. Red, blue, green, and purple dot the heads of each yellow and brown cake. A couple of them look messier than you’d like, but to your credit you think you’re doing a good job for someone who’s never frosted cupcakes before.

  
  


Cal turns his nose up at the way your ‘plebeian confectioneries’ look, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to tell you how to do it, or from sneakily floating one of them upstairs to Dave while your back is turned.

  
  


You ineffectively chase him with a purple-spewing nozzle. “You’re lucky Hal didn’t see you do that.”

  
  


Caliborn turns the frosting nozzle back on you, laughing at the schmutz you have to wipe off of your face. “THE BRIGHT COLORS OF INNOCENCE. SUIT YOU.”

  
  


You don’t know what to say to that. You lick the frosting off of your thumb and ignore how light your stomach feels. Cal visually disappears, but you can still feel him.

  
  


As you’re finishing up the final touches, Kankri calls your phone. Your phone which is upstairs. You get a vision of it in your head – your dour room, Hal hunching over his laptop at your desk with his hands on his forehead looking deeply conflicted, your phone lighting up soundlessly on your bed – before it disappears as quickly as it came.

  
  


You look down. Your hands are covered in frosting and also something unidentifiable but sticky.

  
  


You wash your hands as briskly as you’re capable of and dry them on that terrible yellow towel what has beset your household for a decade now, but even then you know that you’ve probably missed Kankri’s call.

  
  


“Someone was calling your phone,” announces Hal’s voice from behind you, causing you to have a miniature circus pony in surprise as you spin around. He flashes the device at you from the kitchen’s stair-facing doorway. “By the way, it took me all of ten seconds to crack your password. For someone claiming to be suffering from paranoia, you have certainly gone out of your way to let yourself slip.”

  
  


You’re distracted from getting pissed at him by how he tosses your phone at you. You catch it. You say, “Asshole,” instead of “thanks.”

  
  


Hal blinks like he expects nothing less. “Your background is cute. I’m assuming that fellow you’re with is the Kankri guy you occasionally mention, doubling as the person whose call you’ve missed. He’s a stout looking, but he’s got big hands, doesn’t he?”

  
  


You silently glare at Hal in the middle of ringing up Kankri’s number, for speaking would result in something highly unpleasant occurring called ‘giving Hal more fuel for the fire.’

  
  


“You’re not dating him,” Hal states as if you aren’t literally standing there with a phone to your ear, arms half-crossed, giving him the stinkiest side-eye you can manage while lightly dotted with bright sugar smears. “If you were, you wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret from me. You would be astonishingly yet understandably obvious.”

  
  


You want to bite back, to tell him that just because he knows how you acted with Jake doesn’t mean he has the data necessary to predict how you’ll act with any other guy, but you’re interrupted by Kankri answering his phone.

  
  


“Hey, you rang?” You try to shuffle away from Hal’s searching gaze and only end up toothlessly leaning against the opposite wall with your back to him. He does not leave.

  
  


“I wanted to report back and inform you that Karkat still hasn’t changed his mind about not going.” Kankri sighs. If you were face-to-face, you bet this is when he’d start gesturing with a leg smack. “It seems that he’s bent on not letting me go, either. I feel inclined not to try what with how badly he’s ready to blow up. I am sorry, Dirk.”

  
  


“It’s okay,” you reply easily. “I figured something like this might happen. I hoped it wouldn’t, but I created contingency plans in case it did. Dave is obviously sad to hear his local friends won’t be coming but I’m sure he’ll enjoy himself no matter what. And we both know by now Karkat won’t stay away for long.”

  
  


“Right. Business as usual for them.” Something that sounds suspiciously like Kankri’s laptop being shut clatters over the line. “And how did the cupcakes turn out? I don’t often make things gluten-free as I haven’t found a need to, so I hope the old recipe I pulled up did alright.”

  
  


“They came out good.” You turn around as if to affirm to yourself that yes, you _did_ accomplish this one thing (mostly) on your own, Kankri.

  
  


Hal startles you with how close he is.

  
  


You go, _“Mmph.” _An accidental noise.

  
  


“Dirk? What was that?” Kankri immediately launches into it. “Are you okay?”

  
  


“I. Fine.” You decide to keep Hal within your sights from now on. He smiles slow and wide at you, making you immediately regret looking at him at all. “Just. Brother is here.”

  
  


“Oh, your brother!” Kankri sounds way too interested. “On my behalf, could you please tell him I’m sorry that I can’t meet him yet.”

  
  


Your mouth says, “Sure,” but your middle finger says, “fuck off Hal.”

  
  


Hal’s esoteric smile turns falsely sweet. He looks like he’s going to flip out and bite your finger off like a shark, so you drop your hand.

  
  


You tell Kankri that you ought to make sure the cupcakes are put away properly before an unlucky incident occurs instead of the truth, which is that you don’t want to have to deal with explaining to him why your brother makes you act so weird. You hang up.

  
  


Hal is standing over the cupcakes, looking for all in the world exactly like the ‘unlucky incident’ you forewarned Kankri about.

  
  


“This is abnormally festive of you,” Hal coos as he pats the air above your cupcakes like they’re well-behaved puppies instead of lumps of sugar and flour-less cakes. “If you wanted to be so involved, why not go the whole suburban nine yards and bake a cake?”

  
  


“Since it’s on John’s thirteenth birthday, his dad said he’d bring the cake,” you say defensively.

  
  


“I thought you said John was eleven.”

  
  


“He was eleven before his twelfth birthday,” you say with a straight face.

  
  


Hal gets a funny look to him that reminds you more of the him that was prepubescent and mute and astronomically pissed at the world. He reaches over and tries to grab at you, which you of course immediately block, backing up against the counter while you fend him off.

  
  


Hal mutters, “’M ‘onna smack you,” from behind your hand, straining against you holding him as far away as possible. You step hard on his toe. He reaches underhandedly and pinches your right hip, causing you to audibly yelp for reasons he doesn’t deserve to know.

  
  


Ah, just like childhood. All that’s missing is the part where he spits on you.

  
  


Dave’s voice unexpectedly says, “Jesus, don’t be killin’ each other. Damn.”

  
  


You jerk like a spooked horse, abruptly letting go and side-stepping until you’re at the other end of the kitchen.

  
  


Before an awkward silence can truly settle over the scene like radiation dust, Hal says, “My,” in a way that instantly has you worried, “that’s an interesting necklace you’re wearing, Dave. Where did you get it?”

  
  


Dave loops a careless finger through the old ring dangling from its delicate chain, twisting it efficiently back and forth. “A crow gave it to me.”

  
  


There’s red frosting on the corner of his mouth.

  
  


Dave hasn’t been downstairs since before you started baking. Hal would have most likely heard Dave open his door and walk down the hallway, or you going up the stairs – not many things in this old house are silent.

  
  


Hal’s eyes flick rapidly between you, the tray of cupcakes, and Dave. “The pretty silver chain suits you very well, Dave.”

  
  


Dave says something about you gifting it to him, but you’re too busy watching the previously scattered and unnoticed dots unfold and connect in the way Hal’s breathing slows subtly and how his gaze seems not entirely present while remaining scrutinizing.

  
  


The next time Hal tries to catch your gaze, you deflect and make yourself busy putting the cupcakes away properly in the fridge for tomorrow.

  
  


You tell yourself you don’t intend to be caught with your hands up. You know that’s a lie by now, though.

  
  


You must’ve been ‘busy’ with the cupcakes for longer than you were aware of, since when you remove yourself from the fridge, Dave is gone and Hal is openly staring at you with a blank face.

  
  


Air thick with uncut tension, you cross your arms and say nothing.

  
  


“So.” Hal purses his lips, allowing his expressions to become flexible once more. Something in you eases at that, something that says ‘oh, not yet.’ “Dave was just telling me about his little girlfriend, Jade, that we’ll be picking up at the airport tonight.”

  
  


You give him some approximation of an interested expression as you use a damp rag to get as much frosting off of your clothes as you can.

  
  


“He mentioned that it’s not his first girlfriend.” Hal steps closer, acting like he’s about to lean onto your shoulder. You lean away defensively. He looks put out. “Well? Is Dave still a virgin or has he grown up already?”

  
  


You nearly drop your rag in shock. _“Don’t _ask me that. And don’t ask _him_ that.”

  
  


“Why not.”

  
  


“He’s fourteen,” you grind out, tossing your rag aimlessly at the sink. There’s a line of purple on your shoulder strap that you can’t get out.

  
  


Hal looks at you with an expression that conveys how ridiculous he thinks you are. Anger prickles in your throat. “What has _that_ got to do with anything? At fourteen we were engaging in our own puppet pornography stunts – nah, at _thirteen_ we were. At fifteen you were already chasing Jake's tail, if you catch my drift.”

  
  


At that reminder, you feel a flush overcome your skin at the same time ice briefly pricks at your chest, making you agonize over how cavernous and empty you would feel without a second heartbeat there. How grateful you should be that you’re warm forever.

  
  


You don’t know how to explain to Hal what it means to you that Dave is only fourteen. You see him as he is today in your mind’s eye – not small, not anymore, but enough under-grown that he can’t be mistaken for anything except young.

  
  


Being fourteen is like… when Meulin was only fourteen and Rosa didn’t feel comfortable leaving her home alone so she had to pay a baby-sitter, not yet familiar enough with you to ask you to do it, and all Meulin did was sulk in her room.

  
  


It’s like how Dave might not be a baby anymore but he still cries from frustration when he gets tired enough, a trait you think he may always have.

  
  


It’s how Dave still likes it when you bring him his applesauce even if he keeps saying he can get it himself, he never stops you. Or how he occasionally asks you or Cal for help on homework, still trusting you implicitly enough that you naturally register as ‘help’ to him.

  
  


It’s like that. Dave’s still a kid. As long as he’s given ample space and time, he doesn’t care about that kind of stuff yet. Hell, he may never; a sentiment you find much more acceptable now than you did when you first met Kankri.

  
  


“Just…” You let out an uncontrolled noise of frustration. “Just don’t. Don’t make him uncomfortable.” _Don’t make _me_ uncomfortable,_ is what you hold back, fearful of its selfish connotations.

  
  


“If Dave goes at it any slower than this, I’d be worried if I were you.”

  
  


“Yea, well, I’m not askin’ you.” You try to move away from Hal but he merely steps with you. You sigh out your irritation. “If he wants to talk about it some day, then fine. Other than that, it’s his own business how fast or slow he takes it. If he even takes it at all.”

  
  


Hal openly chortles at your wording. You can feel embarrassed heat go to your face and sweat to your armpits. “But you doubt he would talk about it with me.”

  
  


“Exactly.”

  
  


Hal says, “I don’t see why not,” the same way someone who’s never been in a real fight would say ‘I think I can take him.’ “As far as we both know, I’ve got the most experience between the two of us, considering how you’ve wiled away your years as some self-sacrificial nanny. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how teen-aged you moped about, complaining how Jake never let you get past second base, virtually or otherwise.”

  
  


You’d rather have as many years as possible with Dave than you would a boyfriend. If you were younger, this thought would surprise you, maybe even disgust you, but to the you of now, it really doesn’t.

  
  


“We were taught that,” you say.

  
  


Hal stops fiddling with whatever it is he’s found interesting on the counter. “Taught what?”

  
  


“That there was no such thing as love, especially not when it came to sex. Sex was just a business transaction that horny idiots spent all their money and brain cells on.” You snort darkly. “He must’ve thought that snuff porn was the only sex education needed. Hypocritical of him, considerin’ how many kids he made.”

  
  


“I don’t think the kids Dad made was on accident, as funny as it would be to consider the King of Porn stumbling into pregnancy.” Hal tilts his head at you, that analytical gleam in his eye that used to mean trouble, but you can see the blue frosting stuck to his fingers that he’s trying to hide. He’s not that intimidating. “If you’re such a chaste turbo virgin these days, then what of you and that dadbod babysitter? Surely, knowing you, his days have been filled with the most desperate come-ons imaginable.”

  
  


You regret you inability to make yourself say something along the lines of ‘actually _he_ came onto _me’,_ because that’s not entirely true, not in any way Hal would choose to interpret it.

  
  


A hand drifts up to your chest, fingers digging in. The air you breathe is suddenly much hotter, but it doesn’t burn you. “No, it’s not like that. We’re…”

  
  


Instead of being able to finish your sentence, a bloom of warmth erupts deep inside of you. Calmed beyond reason, you briefly shut your eyes to it.

  
  


It’s green.

  
  


When you open them, Hal is ashy in color, a paleness that ruins his good complexion, gripping onto the counter in a very un-casual lean.

  
  


“Dirk,” he whispers harshly, “what was that?”

  
  


You blink at him, dropping your arm. “What was what.” You look behind yourself to make sure Cal isn’t floating knives around again. Nothing. You look back to him with apathy.

  
  


Hal seems much more composed. “Nothing. Must have been a trick of your shitty rustic lights.”

  
  


When he abruptly decides to go ‘ensure that Dave is ready for the airport’, you forget to be offended on your house’s behalf.

* * *

It’s after ten when Hal and Dave come back with Jade in tow. She’s already asleep.

  
  


Hal is acting skittish and Dave is too tired to make firm decisions – you step in to lift the girl out of the backseat of the car and carry her inside. You’ve set up the living room so that both kids can be in separate sleeping bags but still together. The couch is pulled back against the far wall. There isn’t enough room to turn it into a futon, but you’ll survive.

  
  


“Do you know if she ate anything?” You ask Dave at a low volume as you make sure Jade’s shoes are off before you tuck her into the sleeping bag closest to the kitchen.

  
  


Dave, who seems entranced by what you’re doing, snaps out of it. “Uh, yea she said something about having a huge hoagie on the flight over, but tbh I don’t actually know what a hoagie is and I was afraid to ask? Like what if it’s some freaky islander thing that will scar me for life?”

  
  


“It’s a sandwich.” You kiss his forehead. “Go get ready for bed. You can sleep down here with her for tonight.”

  
  


Looking slightly more awake than when he came in, Dave scampers upstairs to change and brush his teeth.

  
  


You accidentally step on Jade’s incredibly long curly hair when you try to get out of the middle of the living room, but she doesn’t wake up wailing so you’re going to assume that you haven’t hurt her.

  
  


Expecting Hal to be somewhere in the room with you, you’re left off-kilter when you can’t spot him.

  
  


You’re wandering around all confused as if he’s about to pop out of a random corner when you see a sliver of him through the front window. You go back outside.

  
  


He’s staring down at Dave’s Bench. “You made this. Didn’t you.”

  
  


You readily shrug. “Dave needed somewhere quiet to be alone that wasn’t too far from the house. Ergo: bench.”

  
  


Hal shakes his head slowly at you. “You are insinuating that he cannot find privacy in a closed bedroom or bathroom.”

  
  


You shrug again.

  
  


He breaks a smidge, reaching up and rubbing at his forehead in a similar pose to when you unwillingly spied on him working in your bedroom. He walks towards the door. “Whatever, Dirk – I’m too tired to deal with your merry-go-round of –”

  
  


When he tries the door handle, it doesn’t open.

  
  


“What the fuck.” He puts his body weight into it, so much so that you can faintly hear the servos whir in his arm from the force of it. “Fuck it all, Dirk – don’t tell me you locked this.”

  
  


“Almost never do.” You nudge him aside and reach for the handle.

  
  


It opens so fast. You barely have to touch it.

  
  


You glance back over your shoulder at your brother, looking away once you realize you can’t handle his too-open expression for long. “’S open. Dunno what you're on about.”

  
  


Hal hesitates for the smallest of moments before following you in. You let him watch you deftly close and lock the door without commenting.

  
  


When you move away, a pocket of supernatural heat waits for you as if it knew where you would stand next.

  
  


From the way Hal takes an involuntary step back from you, towards the stairs, you imagine that there must be a peculiar shimmer in the air somewhere around you, or perhaps there may be a disquieting mien to how you hold your body.

  
  


“You good,” You ask him despite knowing the most likely answer.

  
  


He nods like he isn’t aware that he’s doing so, then wordlessly beats a composed retreat up the stairs.

  
  


You only get a few moments of rejoice before you realize with immediate, prodding guilt that Dave is standing in the kitchen, cup of water in hand. He saw all of that.

  
  


He has the gumption to chastise you, shaking his head in a disapproving manner.

  
  


He goes to bed in the sleeping bag without speaking to you. You resign yourself to laying on the couch and feeling like a piece of shit while your kid shows more maturity than you.

* * *

The day of the party begins with a barely brightened grey sky, a light drizzle, and a young girl’s excited screaming.

  
  


It’s so shocking that you’re almost certain that you push yourself out of the deep dreamless sleep on your own, not even the hallucinogenic snakes able to hold you down.

  
  


Jade and Dave are standing on top of the mess of their sleeping bags, smiling open-mouthed at each other. Jade is hopping up and down, her hands rapidly flapping as excited noises come out of her.

  
  


Harshly, you silence the instant reaction inside of you that claims you need to quiet her, to stop her hands from moving like that. Like she’s stimming.

  
  


“Sorry I fell asleep on you guys!” Jade is very loud, still hopping lightly even as Dave tries his best to hug her back. “Hehe, I do that a lot!”

  
  


“Yea I know you kamikaze Creeper girl,” Dave says. “There’s only so many times you can get your house blown up and snore over the mic before I figured you out.”

  
  


You swear you only take, like, half a minute of a slow blink to yourself, but when you open them you’ve got a face full of little girl. You try not to over-react.

  
  


“Hi.” Jade is just. _Very_ close to your face right now. “I’m Jade.”

  
  


“I know,” you say.

  
  


She tilts her head charmingly to the side, spilling hair over one shoulder. “So I heard you carried my comatose body inside last night?”

  
  


Behind her, Dave doesn’t bother to stifle his snorting nor does he move to help you interact.

  
  


“You were asleep,” you say perhaps a mite too defensively. “I couldn’t leave you outside in the car.”

  
  


She stands up straight and snickers at your expression, eyes crinkling shut and nose scrunching. “I was just trying to say ‘thank you’, silly! I wouldn’t wanna be left out in the car, either. I mean, maybe if you cracked a window…”

  
  


“I drove you here!” Hal claims from the top of the stairs, descending like a Southern debutante on her big night. “Let us not forget my starring role in the ‘little girl not left outside in the car’ conundrum.”

  
  


It takes Dave whispering a “that’s Hal btw in case you don’t remember from last night” into her ear to push her to get all up in his grill next. To his credit, he takes it with more decorum than you did, but against his credit, he woke up willingly like a normal person and had more than a moment to collect himself.

  
  


It’s closer to dawn than it is noon – the other two families won’t be here until nearly one. You ask the kids what they want for breakfast, ignoring Hal’s persnickety, “I never get to pick in this household.”

  
  


Jade and Dave decide on pancakes. You have the gluten-free flour so Hal doesn’t get left out (translates to: bitches anymore than necessary) and you let everyone pick what they want in theirs – Dave wants apples and cinnamon like usual and Jade excitedly asks to try chocolate chips. You and Hal can get what’s left over between the two choices.

  
  


As Jade is leaning over the table, reaching out for the plate you hand her, you spy a long row of colorful rubber bands wrapped around her tiny wrist. You wonder what they’re for.

  
  


You get your answer when she takes one or two off while she’s eating, flipping them around and around on her fingers while her other hand cuts her food into perfectly even squares.

  
  


After a few minutes of quiet horfing, one of Jade’s rubber bands wild-shots, flinging up into the air and then _p__lepp_ing in the middle of the table all curled around on itself.

  
  


She points at it. “Hahahaha, it landed in the shape of a dick.”

  
  


You lightly choke on your coffee. Across the table, Hal makes a noise not unlike a dog toy re-inflating.

  
  


Dave is utterly gone with it, his laugh becoming so high and breathless that it comes out at a pitch only dogs and autistics can hear, his face turning peachy red in an instant as he practically spasms in pure mirth and also the struggle to intake oxygen.

  
  


Jade laughs alongside him but there’s an embarrassed flush to her cheeks. “I said that too loud didn’t I?”

  
  


Over the rim of your slightly spit-tainted mug, you nod minutely at her, but you allow her a half-smile so that she doesn’t feel too bad about it. Echoing words Dave once said: you’ve heard worse from a Vantas. She’s fine.

  
  


After breakfast is all cleaned up, Jade asks if they can ‘go explore.’ You assume that means some good ole’ scampering in the near woods, so you agree after dousing each kid with bug spray, the good shit that repels ticks as well. You’ve already learned that lesson.

  
  


You go outside as far as Dave’s Bench, watching Dave eagerly lead Jade to the log he used to roll over almost every day when he was younger, looking for bugs. Jade tricks him into thinking she’s eating a beetle, causing him to blanch and let out a string of distraught gibberish.

  
  


You distantly wonder what it is with Dave and dating girls that like to bully him. You quickly decide that it’s probably best if you don’t know the answer.

  
  


When they hesitantly poke through one of the treeline’s deer paths, Dave glancing over his shoulder and protectively holding onto his little girlfriend’s wrist, you wave them on.

  
  


“What are you doing?” Hal is primly perched on the seat next to you like he’d rather be doing anything else. “They could get lost in there. It’s positively murky-looking past a few feet.”

  
  


“Ehh,” you hum to stall time so that you don’t say something like ‘I’ve got a dead man on the job and Dave knows the boundary too well to go past it’, “The crows’ll kick up a racket if somethin’ happens. Dave knows what he’s doin’.”

  
  


Hal looks at you too deeply, like he can’t decide if he understands who you are anymore. Secretly, neither do you.

  
  


Hal only lasts around an hour before he claims he’s too busy to stay outside staring at nothing with you, retreating in to ‘work’ on that laptop of his. Caliborn appears in his place, a presence that you need not talk to. Need not fake anything for.

  
  


He holds your hand. It feels a lot like something you don’t want to describe but can’t help to – it’s like watching a timer count down, knowing that when it hits ground zero something that will scare you will erupt, yet not being able to look away, not being able to unknow the time left, tension winding higher and never abating.

  
  


His ‘body’ disappears a mere instant before the kids come falling back through to the driveway. They’re giggling about some weird frog they found that’s got three eyes. Dave is gung-ho about Jade wanting to keep it, but your instincts tell you otherwise. You make them set it free, which dampens the mood some, but you manage to bring it back up by offering the opportunity to try some of the cupcakes before the other kids get here.

  
  


Jade picks a green one just like Dave said she would. You feel a momentary fleck of relation pass between you and her, ruined only by how loudly she screams in excitement when Dave suggests they play Minecraft together in-person instead of over video chat.

* * *

Hal detaches from his computer long enough to tell you that the Egbert's and the (OG) Lalonde’s arrive at the airport around the same time. They decide to take a joint cab over to save on money.

  
  


“Not that the Lalonde’s are left wanting when it comes to money,” he recalls.

  
  


“I would rather not know what, exactly, you hope to benefit from saying that.” From where you stand in front of the living room window, you can hear the kids chattering loudly to each other upstairs.

  
  


“Not so much ‘benefit’ as ‘remind.’” Hal takes the last few stairs down until he’s making his way across the living room to come stand by you. His eyes, however, do not join yours at the window, instead doing his best to bore his identical ones into your soul.

  
  


Unlucky for him, your soul is a little too full for that nonsense these days.

  
  


“My previous statement stands.” You blink at the green-tinged dust motes falling slowly in front of your face. You look straight through them into the light as if they aren’t there.

  
  


“I suppose you’re thinking all will be forgiven?” Hal makes a bitter scoffing noise. “From what little I was _allowed_ to know of them, Roxy may be in the business of turning a blind eye for the sake of a friend, but with the way you parted from your previous guild, can you be certain you still occupy that giving part of their heart?”

  
  


“Of course,” you say with surety that you did not feel several years ago, curled up in your room wibbling apologia about lost connections. “Just because we haven’t shared our deepest thoughts and feelings in a while doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten each other.”

  
  


Hal gives you a look before shaking his head. “I’d accuse you of sounding like a fucking anime character if I didn’t know you’ll take it as a compliment.” He hops back up each stair with a light stomp. “I hope you know what you’re doing, mister ‘I used to cry at night worrying about my friends hating and leaving me.’”

  
  


You heavily consider ruining the day by letting yourself get truly mad at your brother, but you’re distracted by how Hal trips on the top step, his hands flying out at a delay. Your heart drops steeply. You’re halfway across the room before you realize what you’re doing.

  
  


“You okay?” You ask him as he picks himself up from his half-stumble.

  
  


“Peachy keen,” he says, though it’s with an embarrassed countenance that he then shuts himself in the room. For all the strength and intricacy that went into his arms, there will always be minor setbacks, such as the discrepancies between someone else’s reaction times and his.

  
  


He could have seriously hurt himself.

  
  


With everyone of interest out of sight, you whirl around.

  
  


Caliborn stands mere inches apart from where you previously were. He’s in full view of the front window, which would make you more worried if you didn’t know that company is a good hour out.

  
  


You step forward at the same time he does, reaching somewhere deep with white-knuckled strength to bind yourself to him, grasping the ribbons of your selves taut and winding together until you are of one body and borderline one consciousness.

  
  


Brutally, you bombard your selves with every last feeling you’ve ever had for Hal, every pertinent memory nocked deeply inside your brain. It may be lacking in a definite pure form of love, but one cannot claim that you do not feel strongly for your twin, whether those emotions manifest negatively or positively.

  
  


It lasts for an infinitesimal amount of time. Caliborn ends it by practically ripping yourself away from him. You end up on the floor with smarting elbows, dazedly seeking him out with determination.

  
  


“YOUR TANTRUM WAS UNNECESSARY.” Caliborn looms over you, looking down with violence in his eyes that does not entirely reach his fragment beating away in your chest. You slump proudly. “I WILL PLAY YOUR CHILDISH GAMES. OF CHARADES. AND HIDE-AWAY. BUT DO NOT EXPECT ME TO ALLOW SUCH HARM. TO BEFALL US.”

  
  


“Hal isn’t going to hurt me.” You don’t bother standing fully, simply sitting up with your legs folded. Cal paces restlessly in front of you like a caged tiger and not a metaphorical man who has no nerves for which to burn. You should know. “Remember how Dave and I used to act around the stairs? Yea, don’t fucking shove him up there. I don’t care if he just took a huge diarrhea dookie all over my psyche and then pranced away to go jerk off in victory – you be careful with my family.”

  
  


Cal leans down like a jack-in-the-box losing its balance, bending until all you can see is his green and his red eyes, your skin close to burning from the sudden temperature flux. **“OUR** FAMILY.”

  
  


“Right.” You know that he knows you want to roll your eyes and bitchily shove him away, but you restrain yourself. “Listen – if you wouldn’t do it to Dave, don’t do it to Hal. Or any of our guests this weekend. _Capisci?”_

  
  


“SUCH A TENDER SOUL YOU ARE.” His leaning turns swiftly into pressing, practically flattening you to the floor like an overcooked pancake. You endure it with ease beyond what the hardwood does to your joints. “YOU NEED NOT HAVE LASHED OUT. I WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD. BEFORE THE WORDS REACHED YOUR LIPS.”

  
  


You sigh audibly. You decide not to say ‘then why did you do it in the first place?’

  
  


“NO?” Caliborn pulls back until you feel less like you’re a sodomite being tossed into a furnace. You no longer carry the instinct to check for burns you now know will not be there. “YOU DO NOT BELIEVE ME?”

  
  


“I believe that –” Someone has breached the terrortory line.

  
  


_What?_

  
  


Stars burst. You go so utterly limp that you feel as if you briefly float through the floor and also space-time itself. Nothing catches you. Not even the water.

  
  


You think you lose time, what with how you feel yourself come back down not like you’ve left your body, but like your body left you. You’re dizzy enough that you can’t open your eyes yet.

  
  


Did you faint? Wow. That’s really dramatic and unusual. At least you were already on the floor.

  
  


“Bro? _Bro?_ Is he fucken’ dead?”

  
  


You think the kids saw some of it.

  
  


“I know how to check and see if he’s dead!” Seriously, Jade says, “Dave, go get me a good stick.”

  
  


Okay, that’s enough of that. You peel open your eyes. The kids swim into view, the both of them crouched over your head. Dave doesn’t seem surprised to find you alright. Jade seems a little bummed, which is pretty off-putting.

  
  


“I just got around ten text messages all at once from –” Hal halts near the kitchen, blankly staring down at the scene literally laid out before him. “What the hell are you doing on the floor.”

  
  


“Yoga,” you reply blandly. You sit up slowly. Your back crackles like aluminum foil, eliciting a horrified “omg” from Dave. “_O__of.__”_

  
  


“Well it doesn’t sound like it’s working out for you. Anyway – why was I bombarded with obfuscatingly frantic texts from a teen-aged girl asking me multiple times if my directions were right? I didn’t think your internet connection out here was _this_ booty.”

  
  


“Driveway doesn’t have signal. Means they’ve almost reached the treeline.” Dave and Jade try to help pull you up – unlike when Dave was much smaller, they do actually help the process along, even if it feels like Jade is doing her utmost best to yank your arm out of socket.

  
  


Once you’re marginally steady on your feet, Jade runs for the front door, pulling Dave along with. A car rolls through the treeline, one of those green electric taxis.

  
  


Anxiously, you do one last sweep of the downstairs area. Stack of recyclable cups, unmatching napkin piles, jug of lemonade you made, snacks and other food shit, Sprite floating in the middle of the kitchen waving at you, new trash bags put in –

  
  


Wait a damn minute.

  
  


You dive at Sprite, catching him a lot easier than you thought Caliborn would allow you to. Its bulbous gumdrop-shaped body distorts slightly with your grip, black button eyes going crossed. You loosen up a bit.

  
  


“Hey you, most important host,” Hal’s voice calls from behind you. “You know Roxy will see right through me if I put on a long sleeve shirt and pretend to be you, right? You better get out there before your bambinos maul them.” He notices what you’re holding. “Is that… that stupid crow I made for Dave? It’s still here? Looks like its been through hell.”

  
  


You let him take it, that strange glassy look to his eyes compelling you. “It was a toddler’s favorite toy. What’d you expect. I’ve had to sew it back up from forehead to ass at least twice.” Quieter, you add, “Dave loves it too much to ever get rid of it.”

  
  


“He called it ‘Sprite.’” He gently turns it in his hands, causing the wings to flop around. “I haven’t seen it since I made it.”

  
  


You scratch the back of your head. “Dave must’ve brought it down for some reason. Usually he puts it on a shelf or in his bed.” You walk towards the front door, which the kids left wide open. Probably expected you to take less time than this. “Just leave it on the couch. He’ll know what to do with it.”

  
  


Hal must do as you suggested, as when he joins you outside, he’s no longer carrying Sprite.

  
  


The doors open on the van-like taxi. The first person out is Roxy.

  
  


They may have different glasses, different hair, and different clothes, but you instantly know that it’s them.

  
  


You aren’t sure if your emotional response to seeing Roxy is the same as the one you had seeing Hal, but you must do something outwardly odd, because someone’s hand steadies you from behind.

  
  


It’s Hal – the hand is cold and a little unsteady with minute machine vibrations.

  
  


You didn’t think you would seek out cooling sensations ever again, what with yourself now being programmed to find comfort and energy and salvation in the warmth of an unliving fire, but you’re being reminded of how fevers require cool water to find relief.

  
  


For a moment you feel akin to a swollen wound that has been unable to find the proper elevation to drain itself with for many years. For a moment your chest is cavernous and uninfected. For just a moment you have trouble remembering why you ever thought that was a bad thing in need of remedying.

  
  


Your brother gives you a light push forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzy6dE46vm8)   
[[CLICK HERE if you figured out the mystery and sent a comment with a spoiler in it and now your comment is stuck in Unapproved Limbo until the story ends]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs9IHgjeQTo)


	14. Your Secret's Safe With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Platonic intimacy, emotional schmoop, gross teenager humor, weaboo shit, a terrifying amount of domesticity, terrible horrible flirting part 2, (consensual) removal of prosthesis, siblings fighting, mild horror, referenced past child abuse, referenced past drug use, referenced alcoholism, referenced kidnapping, implied physical abuse, internalized sexism, internalized ableism & ableist language (crippled), semi-nudity on various occasions, Rose/Kanaya hate-flirting, past Roxy/Hal, implied past unrequited Roxy<>Dirk, referenced Hal/Equius, Jade/Dave, tonal whiplash, dissociation/shutdowns, cliffhanger-esque ending.

It’s not an unwelcome surprise when Roxy makes the executive decision to not blow y’all’s entire shared past open right here in the driveway in front of four uninvolved teenagers. They merely greet you in an unreadably calm, detached way that they have never truly used with you before, but you’ve witnessed them use on others countless times.

  
  


You fight back by silently grabbing suitcases out of the van, acting like Hal isn’t obnoxiously leaning all of his weight onto your ass whenever you bend over.

  
  


Roxy goes about helping their little sister from the cab. She doesn’t take their proffered hand, looking miffed that they tried to hold one out in the first place. In your experience, this is exactly how sixteen-year-old's act. She somehow puts you at ease.

  
  


_Rose,_ your mind supplies as who you can only assume is John tries to rugby tackle Jade. Jade stays standing. Nobody eats dirt and your hands are full of several people’s luggage, so you’re in no position to wrangle children.

  
  


You get this distracting inkling that Rose is definitely not fully related to Roxy. You can’t put a finger on just one thing – it’s simply in the way the cant of her jawline looks oddly familiar at the right angles, but that familiarity does not begin nor end with her older sibling. It’s in how Roxy’s sunny tan can’t match the natural warmth of Rose’s brown complexion, so flawless that she must be wearing foundation.

  
  


It doesn’t sound logical even to yourself, but perhaps you’ve got an eye for this sort of thing, considering your own little half-brother; you’ve gotten too self-aware of it.

  
  


Maybe it’s because you haven’t seen Rox in years, but you find yourself staring inappropriately long at their thin, pale lips smiling coquettishly at their sister. At the cracks appearing around their eyes. All it takes is one of Hal’s supremely ‘bony’ elbows drilling into your rib cage to snap you out of it, though.

  
  


“_None of your business,”_ he hisses into your ear. If your hands were free, you’d rub at it to get rid of the ticklish sensation. Then again, if your hands _were _free, you would probably be engaging in a slap fight.

  
  


Although it’s harder than you calculated, you turn away from Roxy. Other people need your attention right now.

  
  


The most politely difficult man on the planet gets out of the cab last – Jeff Egbert. He says something about how it’s “so nice to finally meet you” and then proceeds to expertly snatch every single piece of luggage, including the ones you were holding.

  
  


He carries them all inside. All of them. No, you don’t understand – all of them _at once__._

  
  


John makes a squawking noise that only a thoroughly embarrassed child can make.

  
  


“Ohmygod, I swear I told him not to do that!” He chases after his dad. So that’s a total of two random people entering your house without you first implicitly inviting them in. Hope they don’t die.

  
  


Dave, appearing awestruck, turns to you. You think he’s about to ask you something, but then you realize he’s looking past you towards Hal. “Hey, why can’t you do that?”

  
  


Hal looks blandly devastated. “Pardon, little boy?”

  
  


Although you’re not currently in the business of defending your twin from being bullied (if that’s what you want to call it) you _are_ a proud propagator of preventing your little brother from making stupid decisions, such as bullying your twin. You say to Dave, “Hey, why can’t you.”

  
  


“C’mon, I’m not fully grown yet, who knows what I’ll be doin’ when I’m that old. But him, he’s got fucken’ super robo arms. And I know what _you_ lift.” He slaps you on the right bicep. It doesn’t hurt. “That normal ass suburban dad just outshined the both of y’all. Shameful.”

  
  


“I can pick up Rose!” Shouts Jade, currently picking up Rose, who looks only somewhat affected.

  
  


“Thank you for holding me in your strong little girl arms,” says Rose. “I’ve never felt a love so genuine before.”

  
  


“No problem!”

  
  


Jeff vacates your house as soon as he’s set down all of the luggage, his ruddy-faced son trailing behind him. When John gets within speaking distance of the other kids, he says, “I wasn’t lying! Did you see that!? My dad could beat up your dad!”

  
  


All at once, Rose, Jade, and Dave say, “I don’t have a dad.”

  
  


John looks like he’s eaten a lemon and it caused him to lose his soul.

  
  


The only dad in question sticks out a reasonably sized hand for you to shake. “I hope you don’t mind that I did that. It’s better to get those sorts of things out of the way as soon as possible so that they have less of a chance of becoming collateral damage. Was second nature, really. Jeff Egbert, at your service.”

  
  


“Dirk Lalonde.” You shake his hand. It’s dry and warm. “Though you already knew that.”

  
  


Jeff smiles genially at you as if he hadn’t lit a fire under your ass every other weekend for nearly a year. He sticks the next hand out for Hal. “Hello there. You two look like peas in a pod. Twins?”

  
  


Hal’s smile isn’t as smarmy as he’s capable of, but you do detect subtle discomfort caused by being in the presence of a new person with unobtrusive goals. “Is it that obvious? I’m Hal.”

  
  


“Pleasure.” Jeff’s eyes go round, turning Hal’s hand slightly to get a better look at the prosthesis. “What a beautiful piece of hardware.”

  
  


“Hush, you’re making me red,” says Hal, who has a history of blushing only when he’s rip-roaringly pissed and never any other time. “My brother and Roxy here created the initial build for me. My boyfriend and I have been re-sizing and improving them since.”

  
  


“They look great on you.” Jeff is distracted from further conversation by the kids scream-laughing.

  
  


You all become aware of the fact that several people, including Dave, are covered in whipped cream. John is cackling, chasing people around, squirting fluffy dessert topping onto anyone who dares come within a few feet of him. The only person remaining un-creamed is Roxy, who is standing very far apart with their phone out to record.

  
  


“Let’s get everyone settled inside before World War Chitlens breaks out,” Hal suggests.

  
  


You strand Hal in the task of arguing with Jeff and Roxy over who gets to pay the cab while you hustle the kids indoors, dodging whichever ones try to rub their gross sticky hands on you (Dave.)

  
  


On the kitchen counter is a long, shallow dish heaped with several curled towels. They’re practically steaming, and are lightly damp.

  
  


You roll your eyes to the ceiling. Oh Caliborn.

  
  


You take them anyways, distributing them amongst those who have been creamed. They’re effective at both getting the whip off of clothing and also the sticky feeling from skin. During the pass through, you confiscate the nearly empty can from John. Little shit doesn’t even pretend to look contrite.

  
  


Once everybody’s relatively clean and you’ve gotten a strangely approving nod from the returned Jeff, you re-collect the towels in the same dish, ferrying it back to the kitchen where you give them all a rinse. You drape them over the unused curtain rack above the kitchen window, opening it for a breeze.

  
  


Dave and John are wrestling on the floor for unknown reasons when you return from your task. Notably, Dave isn’t crying wolf as much as he would if he were with Karkat or Terezi, which you quietly find hilarious. Jade keeps trying to helpfully fold up the sleeping bags left out but is failing because Rose is standing right behind her, secretly stepping on the ends and unraveling it all over again. When Jade notices, they start to wrestle too.

  
  


Ah, children’s skinship.

  
  


They had better not fucking break anything.

  
  


Jeff is sitting on the far left of the couch that has since been moved to the middle of the room, though he’s turned slightly as if to observe you in the kitchen. The way his pressed slacks, crisp button down shirt, and classy hat clash with the remote homey air has got you feeling like you’ve been unexpectedly visited for a parent-teacher conference.

  
  


You assume Hal and Roxy are still outside, which would fill you with dread if only you didn’t trust Rox to handle themself.

  
  


You offer Jeff some coffee. Contrary to his appearance, he asks if you have tea instead. You say you do, but only oolong. He says that’s fine.

  
  


You’re about to ask the room at large if anybody else would like something to drink, but you’re interrupted by John practically collapsing onto his father’s lap, doing that huffy thing that means someone’s near tears.

  
  


Oh, my god, no. There’s absolutely no crying allowed in here.

  
  


How in the hell has shit already hit the fan within the span of a short conversation about beverage choices. You point your questioning stare at Dave, who doesn’t seem to notice, standing frozen like a gingerbread man.

  
  


“Dad!” John wails theatrically, “why didn’t you tell me that I was _adopted!?”_

  
  


Behind him, Dave is holding onto his face, genuinely horrified, whispering, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit what have I done oh fuck.”

  
  


Jeff is unaffected. “John, that was only funny the first ten times you did it. Please don’t distress your friends.”

  
  


John sags with a sigh, standing up. His face is completely dry. “It’s definitely still funny, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  
  


“What the _fuck!”_ Dave goes in a high-pitched voice, trying to hit John with a discarded pillow. Jade steals the pillow and cackles. “Scared the gracious blue hell outta me! I thought I ended your whole life!”

  
  


John grins. “Aww, you _do_ care!”

  
  


Dave mumbles something under his breath that sounds like ‘bitch’ but he’s side-eyeing you too much to actually say it.

  
  


“Really, Dave.” Rose reaches over and plucks some various floor fuzz stuck to Dave’s hair. “John is Indian. His father is white. What did you think happened? A stork? A comedic mix-up at the hospital?”

  
  


Dave throws his arms up and shoots Rose an incredibly pointed look that you didn’t think him capable of. _“__No,_ I thought John came down on a meteor, _duh. _I’m not the unreasonable one here, it’s y’all. All y’all, heretics, and also you suck at video games, so shut _up_ Rose.”

  
  


As the kids collectively decide that it’s time to corral themselves into Dave’s room in order to prove him as wrong as possible, Rose keeping a tight grip on the back of Dave’s shirt collar like he’s about to escape, Hal and Roxy file in with blank faces and zero indication of what sort of interaction they had while alone outside.

  
  


In trying to catch Hal’s eye, you’re unexpectedly caught in Roxy’s instead as they sit down on the couch cushion furthest from Jeff. Hal takes one of the kitchen chairs you dragged to the living room in an asinine attempt to provide ample seating.

  
  


You make enough oolong tea for anybody that wants some. You belatedly note how Sprite was gone from the couch when you came in. You bet Cal returned it upstairs while everybody was outside. You wonder if Hal noticed, or if his logical mind concluded that Dave must have carried it up before he came back inside.

  
  


You pour the tea into the matching forest green mugs Cal convinced you to order not that long ago. There’s not a lot he can’t convince you of, you think, when he’s possessing you. Thankfully he isn’t the equivalent length of a box cutter deep into your brain all the time, or else by now he would have somehow gotten you to re-do the furniture to his tastes at the upholstery place he’s threatened you with.

  
  


_Y__es,_ you _know_ the red couch looks a little beat up and that your paltry furniture creations could use some cushioning. But you live in the woods, not the city. Dave isn’t a little kid anymore but he still sometimes makes a mess. _You_ sometimes make a mess. Shit’ll get ruined, especially those dumb Victorian patterns Cal’s obsessed with –

  
  


Your body sags momentarily. Who are you now that you’ve sunk to re-treading arguments with your ghost in your head? Is it some kind of centering tactic that you were in denial about?

  
  


Well, it’s not like that’s the only thing you’re in denial about, but… whatever.

  
  


You know how Hal takes his – too much soy milk, honey, and sugar – but you have no idea how Roxy or Jeff take theirs. Probably should have asked.

  
  


As you’re deciding between giving up any pretense of knowing what you’re doing versus utilizing that mysterious silver tray that’s been in the cabinet, polished but unused for years, a vision comes upon you like a locust deciding to divebomb your face, except there’s no anti-bug maneuver that you can pull that will save you. You just have to take it.

  
  


It’s Dave’s room. The vantage point is odd, like you’re a fly on the wall, too tall to be your own height. You look down upon all of the kids standing in a row, their expressions inscrutable, like the picture quality is too low. Dave’s hand motions towards you.

  
  


You can’t hear him, but you can make out that his mouth says, “Guys, this is Cal.”

  
  


A voice that isn’t yours but sometimes feels close enough says, “PLEASURE.”

  
  


You come back to yourself unwittingly mouthing the word ‘pleasure’ only to realize that you’ve overfilled one of the mugs, coating the counter in leaf juice. You clean it up with half a mind.

  
  


So. Dave is actively introducing Caliborn to the other kids. That’s not anxiety-inducing at all. Neither is it against the unspoken rules – it’s not as if you banned Dave from telling his friends about Cal. In fact, looking at your past actions, you may have outright encouraged Dave to tell other kids. But not adults.

  
  


You lean heavily on the counter.

  
  


God, why do you wish Kankri were here so badly? His mere presence would inject an ounce of normality to the situation, and he actually has experience hosting for people other than grade schoolers. Whereas you know that as soon as you get out there, you won’t speak unless spoken to, and if nobody speaks to you thereby proving that you exist, you may decide to banish yourself into the woods as soon as possible.

  
  


This isn’t Hal’s domain but he’s certainly a chatterbox, and Caliborn may as well only exist as a children’s fable but he’ll at least keep the house from burning down.

  
  


...As if. You can’t leave. Dave would freak out. He wouldn’t get to enjoy his little party. And then the guardians of the kids would never let those kids talk to Dave again. You would ruin everything.

  
  


You tell yourself to grin and bear it as you balance the tray and step out into the living room, where no actual grinning takes place because you’re sure you’d look pained. You set the tray down onto the blandest coffee table you’ve ever seen.

  
  


“Your brother was telling me about how you’re as talented in computer engineering as you are woodworking,” Jeff says. You immediately begin sweating. “I can’t believe that you made that bench out front yourself, and this table looks wonderfully sturdy.”

  
  


You feel like glaring at Hal will be mistaken for actual hatred, so you pretend to ignore his eyebrow waggling. “Thanks. It’s not my best skill, but I’m efficient at creating what I need.” At Jeff’s nod as you hand him his tea, you’re compelled to add, “I once made Dave a little wagon. It’s around here somewhere.”

  
  


“A _wagon,”_ Jeff exclaims like he’s never heard of anything better. He sips his tea without complaint. You wonder if anybody will use the little sugar and milk containers you’ve put on the tray. You have the sudden fantasy of Cal levitating the milk and pouring it over everybody’s heads. It serves to amuse you for all of five seconds.

  
  


Roxy unexpectedly speaks up. “Well I bet a wagon isn’t all that complicated compared to literal functioning robo-arms, though I gotta say that I am kinda jelly that you can just make wagons whenever you want.” They reach over and grab the mug closest to them before you can do it for them, pouring some milk in as well.

  
  


“I’d hope not,” says Hal, making grabby hands at the mug that basically looks like it’s only milk from how creamy it is. You hand it to him like he’s a fucking child. He takes one drink of it and states, “I’m moving in forever.”

  
  


You go, “What,” in a tone that’s too stricken for normal conversation. You sit down on one of the stiff kitchen chairs. You forgot to make a mug for yourself. Now it’s awkward.

  
  


“Equius can never get it right because he thinks it’s an ‘affront to nature itself’ and Nepeta is too addicted to coffee to understand much less try,” says Hal. “You’d think for Japanese people they’d be better at it. Goes to show that you shouldn’t stereotype, I guess.”

  
  


“Didn’t your doctor once say that you’d have a heart attack by thirty if you kept it up with all the sugar?” Roxy has the hint of a curled smile.

  
  


Hal takes a swig. “I have until December.”

  
  


Jeff laughs politely, which is an action you don’t think is as swell of an idea as he seems to, because it will only instigate Hal taking the joke as far as possible.

  
  


Thankfully Roxy interrupts with a quiet, “Actually, where’s the bathroom?”

  
  


Hal says, “Upstairs, second door,” as if he lives here and you don’t.

  
  


They set their mug down on the tray and depart to the bathroom. For a moment all thought processes are waylaid by the anxiety of _‘but did I _really_ clean the bathroom?’_ You know you did, because otherwise Cal would’ve literally lit your ass on fire, but you remember that Rox has a history of snooping in other people’s bathroom cabinets.

  
  


What’s in your bathroom cabinets? You try to remember. The usual cleaning supplies, you suppose. You think there may be Hello Kitty-themed bathroom rinsing cups. For Dave.

  
  


You guess that’s not too bad, assuming Roxy’ll take pictures as gossip for the friend group.

  
  


You feel an overtaking whiplash of emotions go through you when you consider that perhaps Roxy’s friend group still consists of Jane and Jake. How they could be informed of your whereabouts at any time via Roxy.

  
  


You don’t know why you didn’t consider it before.

  
  


Hal provides a distraction in the way his jabbering at Jeff’s face is interrupted by how he nearly drops his tea, one arm going abruptly limp like the connection is cut off.

  
  


You pitch out of your chair and onto your feet before you realize what you’re doing, but he catches it at the last moment, muttering something not nice.

  
  


“Are you alright?” Asks Jeff, leaning forward in concern.

  
  


“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just my arms.” Hal safely returns his mug to the tray and sighs, standing up. “I’ll be right back, should check on them to make sure nothing serious is happening. They haven’t been acting right since I got here.” As he walks towards the stairs, he tosses over his shoulder, “It’s almost as if this house is…”

  
  


Unlucky. Cursed. Haunted, perhaps.

  
  


He doesn’t finish the sentence, though if it’s with poignancy or ignorance you’re too far away to tell. He shuts himself behind your bedroom door.

  
  


“Well,” says Jeff far too genially, “I hope he’ll be alright.”

  
  


You are now alone with John’s dad.

  
  


A prolonged silence ensues. It’s only broken by the occasional creaking of the house, or of noises from wildlife outside. In an exciting climax, John can be heard shouting, “NICHOLAS CAGE IS NOT THAT UGLY!” followed by one of Jade’s uncontrollable laughing fits.

  
  


With desperation you didn’t know you had, you consider striking up a discussion about the unmatching napkins, or the furnishings of unknown brands that you got a spare amount of years ago at the local thrift store. Perhaps you’ll recount the tale about how, for a day, you owned an artful coffee table that did not make you want to tear your eyes out every time you looked at it, and then you’ll end the story by not at all explaining the violent circumstances that lead to it getting replaced.

  
  


In hindsight, your trials in woodworking creating only the blandest of designs makes some amount of sense.

  
  


Jeff beats you to it. “I understand that you’re a man of few words. Please don’t feel obligated to force yourself out of your comfort zone simply to entertain me. Really, I would be most fulfilled if this were to simply be a party my son will enjoy. He’s never traveled before, and the last time I can recount him spending the night at a friend’s house was when he was very little.”

  
  


You make a noncommittal noise because you’re too busy telling yourself not to say something dumbass like, ‘Oh, it’s no problem, I’d love to entertain you,’ because you would not love to do that. “When they’re that young, it’s mostly up to the adult to decide where they go anyways.”

  
  


“That is true. In fact…” Jeff stands up. He’s actually drained his tea, despite its function of being a perfunctory offered beverage of questionable quality, “I ought to get working on making that cake, but I don’t want to be remiss in barging into your kitchen as I please.”

  
  


Oh, right, the cake. You figured he would make it here since he didn’t pop a fully created cake out of his hat as soon as he walked in. You lead him to the kitchen.

  
  


Before you can start in on your pre-rendered apologies about not having the proper kitchenware for cake-making, Jeff says, “Not to worry! I brought everything with me.”

  
  


And then he opens his suitcase and pulls out everything. Literally everything – flour, sugar, bowls, mixers, candles. Even an apron.

  
  


Like, you’re impressed at the lengths he seems to not trust you or your kitchen, but you’re also relieved. You don’t own an apron. In your mind, whatever happens while cooking, happens.

  
  


All of those times you spent painstakingly washing out stains on your beloved tanktops do not count.

  
  


The sound of the bathroom and bedroom door opening at about the same time feels like it’s amplified within your ears, your head turning in a flinch.

  
  


Roxy and Hal are both standing in the upstairs hallway, staring at each other, unmoving. All they’re missing is the Western showdown music.

  
  


A bead of sweat collects at your temple.

  
  


Hal beckons them into your room. They follow him after a short pause. The door shuts.

  
  


The sweat drops a trail down your hairline.

  
  


You have to get up there. Now.

  
  


But how? As much as you want to, you can’t just ditch Jeff. Of any of the adults here, he’s the one you’re the most afraid of social repercussions from. He seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and is vastly protective of his son. If he senses that you are perhaps not who you have made yourself out to be…

  
  


Then again, standing around down here having a panic attack about people being in your room is suspicious in and of itself.

  
  


“It’s okay if you’re not alright with me being alone in your kitchen,” Jeff tries to sedate you with, only your mind could not be farther away from this topic. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it if you stood over me the entire time. I’d do the same thing to someone using my kitchen.”

  
  


“I’m alright with you.” You fumble, “I mean _it._ I’m fine with it. Please, have at it, saves me some trouble. I have to go make sure my brother isn’t…” Quick, think of something only the most normal of siblings would do that does not make this man question your sanity. “…Showing Roxy my secret anime figurine collection.”

  
  


Noooooo.

  
  


Jeff simply laughs, deftly twirling a rubber-ended spatula in his hand. “I won’t unnecessarily keep you down here, then. Oh, but Dirk?”

  
  


You freeze up and look at him with eyes that are perhaps too intense.

  
  


“Can you check on John for me while you’re up there?” He requests as he steals some of your eggs from the fridge. Guess he couldn’t bring absolutely everything in the end. “I figured you would already look in on them, but… Oh, these cupcakes look lovely.”

  
  


“Thanks. And sure.” Kinda forgot you made those now that Betty-fucking-Crocker’s long lost son has invaded.

  
  


You keep your cool until you hit the halfway point on the stairs, where you find yourself victim to a burst of anxious energy that has you practically skirting to a stop in front of your bedroom door within seconds.

  
  


Without knocking – this is literally your room, they can deal – you open the door and step inside, closing it quickly behind you as if you’re expecting someone to start shouting.

  
  


No such thing occurs. It’s icy silence inside, Roxy and Hal standing at opposite ends of your room, arms crossed. Roxy stares straight ahead while Hal’s gaze is drawn downward. Neither of them seem surprised at your entrance.

  
  


If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Hal had already lost in whatever he set out to do, but you do know better. They dated for a short period of time, somewhere between creating Hal’s arms and Freshman year of High School. They then crashed and burned in an event Hal was reluctant to explain to you. Since it involved Roxy’s privacy, you didn’t push.

  
  


It’s been nearly fifteen years since, but you understand the lingering bite of first love. Or maybe it’s only you who can never seem to get over the first and final guy, and you’re standing here busy projecting when there are unfortunate conversations to be had before one of the kids gets curious and starts poking around only to witness things they’d be better off without knowing.

  
  


You stagnate near the door, forming a perfect triangle of unease between the three of you.

  
  


The one to break it is Hal, who bitchily plops himself down on the bed, crossing his legs primly before flicking his fingers towards Roxy. _“They_ want to talk to you.”

  
  


As Roxy unfolds their arms and softens their blank-out expression into something bordering on concern, looking over at you, you can practically predict what went down in here before you came in.

  
  


You sigh audibly, deciding to stand over next to the bed so that Hal is mostly out of sight, out of mind, until the next time he inserts himself. “…Rox.”

  
  


Rox knows you. Knows you’ll have trouble starting it face-to-face. If this were online, you’d have already typed about ten lines, all of them a mashup of on-and-off topic and only half of them with a fully fledged argument as defense, but this isn’t online. There’s no screen and no keyboard to hide behind. Can’t just log off and ignore them.

  
  


If you run your mouth here, all you’ll receive is trouble.

  
  


They give what seems to be a subconscious shake of the head, like they can’t help but disapprove of you.

  
  


You wonder if they’re disappointed to see you now. See who you’ve become, a soft-mouthed man of anxiety and sanding wagons instead of sharpening tools, someone who stays fit out of vanity and not for any reason close to survival like it used to be. Somebody who avoids his oldest friends just because he couldn’t handle it and still can’t. A coward.

  
  


In contrast, you wonder in what ways they’ve changed that your view is too self-obsessed to recognize.

  
  


Roxy says, “It’s been a really long time. Too long.”

  
  


You nod. An apology presses at the back of your lips like it’s trying to spit itself out, but you know that saying ‘sorry’ too early and too often comes off as insincere. You hold it in, along with everything else.

  
  


Their controlled demeanor crumbles a bit more. “Dirk… it felt like you’d given up on me as your friend. Your _best_ friend. I was going through some shit and I didn’t want to pull you in, but it felt like you didn’t even notice.”

  
  


Their hands clench, mouth twisting. You don’t let yourself look away.

  
  


“That _hurt,” _they confess. “And then you started sending letters like you’d gone off grid or something. After you essentially told all of us to fuck off and forget about you, you stopped replying at all. What the fuck happened, man? What happened to you?”

  
  


You don’t have anything to say. Nothing that will ease this hurt, so why bother trying to cook something up that you know will be inadequate? Will be like an emotionally immature child pushing all parties to pretend like it never happened in order to increase future deniability?

  
  


In your head, you keep thinking about how of course it’s Roxy who’s here now. Of course they would be the one to find you. They kept their promise to not come after you for as long as they could, you’ll give them that, but understandably even they have a breaking point.

  
  


They never could sit through a mystery without quickly flipping to the end for a glimpse. You used to consider their impatience a detriment to the integrity of a story, but now you understand it may have been a provocative road less traveled, to read the story from back to front. Deconstruct it. To do something only Roxy could understand to do.

  
  


Their expression cracks further, their words becoming softly panicked. “After you ran, I wasn’t sure where you went. I had this bad feeling that you might’ve gone back or something, so I –“

  
  


The, “You didn’t,” comes out of you faster than the logical part of you can convince you to shut up.

  
  


A bird of some sort lands on the sill of your open window.

  
  


Rox holds their hands up defensively. “I’m not a stalker, but I _had to know._ Nobody was there. Hal was gone, _you_ were gone. Not even your dad was there, which was probably the most worrying thing because then there’s no telling where he is.”

  
  


You mouth dries up.

  
  


The bird– crow– _Calliope_– belligerently pecks at the wood.

  
  


“Where did he go? You, Hal, Dave… All three of you are here, so… You can’t not have some idea of where he is, y’know, just to keep track of him, make sure he never messes with you again…” Roxy’s face is desperate. “Right? Dirk?”

  
  


Calliope caws.

  
  


Inescapably confronted, you feel yourself become uncontrollably nauseous and weak in a way that drives you closer to hysteria.

  
  


Now? Like this? Really, you couldn’t have reacted earlier? Were you incapable of reacting at all until someone who thought they knew you came right up to you and said all of the things a part of you wish they’d said ten years ago –

  
  


Calliope _caws._

  
  


Hal stands up abruptly. “That’s enough.” He lays a too-heavy arm across your shoulder. Somehow, you don’t buckle. “I’m sorry Rox, but he isn’t capable of telling you that right now. Work on cinching your curiosity before it kills the cat.”

  
  


When denied answers they are rightfully owed, Roxy’s countenance flips from searching to ferocious in a flash. “What the fuck is wrong with you two now? Hal, if I find out you’re forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to, I’ll –“

  
  


“On the contrary – it’s his own fault entirely.” His arm tightens over your shoulder, hard enough to choke, his cold finger tapping against your jugular vein. It feels as if you can do nothing. “Though I assure you that he is grateful for your concern.”

  
  


“Then why can’t he speak for himself!” Rox looks like they might want to hit you, or maybe Hal, but stop themself, taking a few steps closer. “You two always used to get like this – Dirk, you’d never step in and call him off, it’s almost like you _wanted_ Hal to pretend to be you sometimes just so that you wouldn’t have to have the hard conversations.” Their arms throw themselves into the air. “Well, here it is! The hard conversation! And you, once again, can’t pony up.”

  
  


Finally, you allow yourself to croak out an, “I’m sorry,” forcing yourself to accept the inadequacy. “That was never my intention. Though I admit it was… convenient.”

  
  


Behind you, Hal makes a disparaging noise.

  
  


“Yea, you are now.” Roxy snorts softly, bereft of humor. “You need an out?”

  
  


You go, “What?” and Calliope knocks her beak against the window sill. You avoid bringing attention to her.

  
  


Hal tries to say, “He doesn’t –“

  
  


“Please, Hal, I’m talking to Dirk. Not you.”

  
  


Hal’s grip paradoxically loosens the more worked up he gets, the hot puff of enraged air hitting the side of your cheek from how close he stands, like he’s trying to be your shadow instead of merely your brother. “I told you: _he did this to himself. _I’m not some evil mastermind hooting away behind a curtain. If anything, nobody is appreciating just how much I personally gave up for him!”

  
  


Roxy seems to disregard Hal’s outburst entirely, looking you in the eyes in an uncomfortable way you wish they wouldn’t. “Dirk, if you need me to help you, just say the word. We can work out our shit later. We don’t even have to tell Jake or Jane that you’re back yet. We could get that apartment together you and I always talked about. It might not be a big house or some cabin in the woods, but –“

  
  


“I can’t leave.” Your voice sounds so flimsy, but you say it with the same conviction as a man that will willingly and calmly take a step off a cliff. You reach out and grasp Roxy’s shoulder, a gesture unfamiliar between the two of you. “I don’t need an escape plan anymore, Rox. I regret it now that I never properly told you, but…” You harden your conviction. “I have to stay here. Even if Dave doesn’t. This is where I need to be.”

  
  


Hal steps around the side of you, coming into view and blocking your peripherals of Calliope’s perched black body, giving Roxy a look that’s so full of what he must think is knowing. But he is unfortunately wrong in what he thinks is tying you here.

  
  


Whether or not your fate is worse here than elsewhere is still up for debate, though between whom the debate occurs has yet to be determined as well.

  
  


“Well,” says Hal in his ‘Yes, I _d__o _know better than you’ voice that he himself should know better than to use around Rox, “you have your answer. And all it took was some unnecessary drama.”

  
  


Roxy sighs, a visibly downtrodden look about them, before they reach towards you with a hesitant countenance like you’re an injured animal instead of a person. You close the gap yourself, hugging them, remembering how they used to be a near foot shorter than you. Then again, one of the last times you saw them was when they were only fourteen, sneaking down to Texas with their mom’s stolen credit card and only the best worst intentions.

  
  


“You know I hate arguing with you,” they say into your ear, “but… if you cut ties with Jake and Janey and you _meant it _like that, I knew it was real serious. None of us wanted to admit that whatever you were going through might’ve been bigger than we could handle. We just wanted our best friend back, even if it meant he dragged a shitshow with him.”

  
  


You rub their back. After so long, you know how to give a proper hug by now. “I’m sorry.”

  
  


Roxy whispers, “I know.” After a prolonged moment is disquiet, they pull away. They aren’t crying. “I think I need a minute to myself. If that’s okay. I won’t go digging through your shit, I swear.”

  
  


You shrug like it’s no big deal, giving them one last long look before you send Hal what you hope is a no-shit kind of expression, heading him towards the door with a nod of your head.

  
  


Despite the cattiness of the action, he goes. You pull the door to, though not before casting a glance back at the crow-less window.

  
  


The hallway is empty. Hal has already escaped downstairs. You guess he’s going to inflict Jeff with conversation, something you can’t find in yourself to be worried over right now.

  
  


Someone is in the bathroom. Your fists clench without your express permission, and you become aware of how stressed out you feel. It’s not pleasant. You wish you had the chance to hide away yourself, or be alone with Caliborn for just a moment. But you can’t, because your house is full.

  
  


The heat in your chest that you haven’t been giving your full attention to for a while now reaches a fever pitch.

  
  


Why are all these damn people in your house again?

  
  


Abruptly, you cool down. Dave. It’s for Dave. You can hear his laughter from here. It does more to ground you than any shifty-eye’d arms race between Hal and Roxy ever could.

  
  


You recall Jeff giving you the quest of checking on the kids, John specifically. With a slightly clearer head, you set off to do so.

  
  


Silently, you praise Dave for not completely shutting his door, although you imagine he must’ve wanted to. He’s a good kid. Listens well and shit.

  
  


You pop the door open. “Y’all leaving room for Jesus in here?”

  
  


Dave and John are on the bed next to each other, both holding game controllers. Rose is perching on the thick sill of the open window facing the driveway, petting the closed buds of the reaching morning glories. They all give you near identical expressions of momentary surprise.

  
  


After a short pause, Dave throws his leg over John’s lap. “No.”

  
  


Rose gets up from her seat in order to sprawl onto what’s left open of the bed, also throwing a leg over John’s lap. “Never.”

  
  


You go, “Oh.”

  
  


The kids all gaze at you with expectant eyes. You didn’t calculate on instigating something like this.

  
  


“I didn’t have a plan for if you said no,” you admit.

  
  


“I DID.”

  
  


Dave is the only one to naturally brace himself when all three kids begin to float several inches and then feet in the air.

  
  


It’s easy to not laugh in the face of John’s surprised flailing, Rose’s contained glee, and Dave’s smug excitement, simply because you’re not in the mood to laugh. Still, you hide a smile behind your hand. “Cal, John’s dad will break me in half if he finds out we’re up here zero gravity-ing his son.”

  
  


“NOT IF I DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.”

  
  


John, who is perfectly fine even if he is essentially being airlifted by a poltergeist, says really loudly, “Dave, can I live here!?”

  
  


Dave tries to hold back his giggling. He’s not doing a very good job. “Shut up, I swear you always yell for like no reason. Hold hands with me so that we don’t float away into the atmosphere.”

  
  


John reaches out and just barely links fingers with Dave, also latching on to Rose while singing, “Neeear, faaaar, whereeeverrr you aaare –“

  
  


Rose says, “John, I’m slipping.”

  
  


“See!? I told you he has slippery boyteen hands! Palms sweaty af,” Dave says. “He’s thirteen now, he’s already been cursed with the pubes.”

  
  


“_Pubes?” _John giggles. “Golly, Dave, I didn’t know what those funny hairs around my peepee were called until you told me. What else do you know?”

  
  


Rose laughs a little at that one. Dave’s face goes red even as he seems to be under the impression that his expression is blank and cool. “I meant it short for puberty, obviously. Y’all get y’all’s minds out of the gutter. Jesus, this is why we needed Jesus.”

  
  


“Whose minds are in the gutter?” Asks Jade as she casually walks back into the room, doing a rapid double-take. Her mouth falls open. _“Hey__yy__,_ no fair, I WANNA GET FLOATED TOO!”

  
  


Jade launches herself at the middle of the room as if she will magically start floating like there isn’t a specific force behind these sorts of things that may or may not realize there’s a fourth child in need of buoying. You reach out and catch her round the middle before she can either land on the floor or go careening wildly through the air like a junior astronaut.

  
  


Your only warning of other people about to enter the room is how Rose and John abruptly drop onto the bed and Dave comes flying towards you like he’s being jettisoned from behind by some kind of ass rocket. Or as you like to call him when you’re feeling nicer, Caliborn.

  
  


You catch Dave under the arm that isn’t currently holding up Jade like she’s an elongated football. Rose and John have already rolled off of the bed in surprise and you can practically feel gazes singe into the back of your head, so you toss your acquired kids onto the bed. They both have near the same exact squeal.

  
  


You rub your shoulder, kind of missing when kids used to have the weight and appearance of flour sacks. Now they’ve got long limbs and height and opinions and shit.

  
  


Behind you, you can hear Roxy’s laugh and Hal’s overdone scoff. In front of you, the kids are all in various states of hilarity either on the floor or on the bed. Across your right hip you feel the graze of prickling heat; amusement.

  
  


Yea that’s right. You are Mr. Fun. Thanks for coming to the show.

* * *

Later, you find yourself sitting on Dave’s Bench with Jeff while the cake is baking for hours yet. Roxy got roped into playing a game with the kids and Hal has decided to take a quick walk in the woods, something he never fails to come back from complaining about how it “ruined his kicks” and yet he continues to take walks every day anyways.

  
  


It’s a warm, calm afternoon. Perfect for a newly crowned teenager to be spending with his friends. Jeff is an amicable bench companion as well – it seems he’s taken his characterization of you as a shy man to heart, and knows how to sit in comfortable silence well, only breaking it when he has something he considers important to say.

  
  


“What a sorry state those vehicles are in,” remarks Jeff in a tone of voice you can wholly imagine him saying something banal like, ‘Oh dear, a squirrel’s getting into the bird feeder’ with.

  
  


You’re hardly offended. You don’t covet your truck and you certainly feel nothing for Hal’s disgustingly powder blue rental car, which in your opinion looks like what somebody’s auntie would drive. So technically you do feel something for Hal’s car – lazy disdain.

  
  


“I admit they look pretty scuffed,” you say. “Not that that old truck has ever looked anything but.”

  
  


“Well, granted they _do_ travel to and from a forest drive,” allows Jeff. He takes off his hat to waft a breeze towards himself, although you cannot say you see sweat on his skin in the mild Spring air. “Say, I’ve got an idea, if you would be willing to listen.”

  
  


“I’m listening,” you say, because not responding would feel too much like ignoring a teacher during roll call.

  
  


“Seeing as we’ve got little to do, what with the kids preoccupied, why not give those vehicles a good wash down?” He gestures with his hat in some form of muted excitement. “It’ll keep us boring adults busy. Perhaps your brother will appreciate not having to do it himself before he leaves.”

  
  


“I hope you realize that as soon as we turn the hose on, Dave will want in. It might not be the perfect weather for it, but any opportunity he gets to ‘accidentally’ spray somebody is one he’s itching to take.”

  
  


“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Sounds like it’ll get the kids off their tooshes and up playing. John will be the same,” he says like he’s talking about a feral band of Elementary Schoolers.

  
  


Then again, the only real difference between a High Schooler and an Elementary Schooler is a handful of inches and a world of fashion choices?

  
  


You ignore the lackluster metaphor of your mindscape and give the truck a gander, trying to see it from this suburban dad’s perspective. You imagine he must wash his car at least once a week in order to appear presentable at work and to the neighbors. You have no such concerns. Even Cal doesn’t give a dip about what the truck looks like.

  
  


A sigh. “Fuck it,” you say, already mapping out where the buckets are and pointing towards where the hose is curled up. “Let’s wash a car.”

  
  


As per the way of things, you get unreasonably soaked as soon as the kids all start filing outside, beckoned by the sound of water rushing through the pipes. John starts handing out water balloons like he keeps that kind of stuff on him at all times.

  
  


“I keep this kind of stuff on me at all times,” announces (threatens?) John.

  
  


Well.

  
  


You peel off your wet tanktop and go lay it over a tree branch to air out. Makes you remember that the towels you left over the sink are probably dry by now. Bet Cal put them away already, though.

  
  


You wonder if Cal is bored; conversely, you wonder if Cal is entertained.

  
  


Jeff has somehow managed to not get a single speck of his clothing wet. He’s running a sponge over the windshield of your truck with great care. Not one to let him do all the work, you make your way back towards him.

  
  


Roxy, who’s followed the kids outside, exaggeratedly wolf-whistles at your undressed state.

  
  


You aren’t expecting it, so you turn around to look at who it was like an idiot. In your head you can hear Jake English call you the perfect study of the most famous Bigfoot photograph, which is all hells of disorienting.

  
  


Dave looks up from where he seems to be poking at a snail as his friends watch in either rapt fascination or bemused boredom. _“Eugh,_ Bro, quit it with the tiddies! This isn’t fanservice central! There’s innocent girls here!”

  
  


Your big brother instinct activates. You flex obnoxiously.

  
  


Dave tries to cover people’s eyes, but Rose merely pushes him away. “Don’t treat me as if this display of artless masculinity fools me in the slightest.” She then looks at you as if she’s got dirt on you that you could not possibly imagine.

  
  


Jade, on the other hand, looks you up and down and gives an over-exaggerated, _“Dayum!”_

  
  


Considering she’s fourteen, it doesn’t exactly instill you with a sense of accomplishment.

  
  


Dave is appalled. “Jade… No…”

  
  


“Hahaha, what?” She dances around Dave, his face turning away every time, giving her the perfect angle to pinch his flaming cheeks. “Why are you sooo red Dave?”

  
  


At that moment, Hal comes out of the woods.

  
  


You both look at each other. You shimmy your bare shoulders at him a little.

  
  


Hal goes back into the woods.

  
  


Because you’re a good brother who hates consequences, you wash Hal’s car as thoroughly as you washed your own truck. Jeff doesn’t seem put-off by your shirtlessness like Hal was, but you’re under the impression that Hal did it for show anyways. Like Truth coming out of her well to shame mankind, except it’s Hal coming out of the woods to fill everybody with a sense of _ugh._

  
  


The kids plus Roxy have made themselves at home on the picnic quilt you typically drag out for Dave’s hiking birthdays. Dave knows where you keep it, so he’s taken it upon himself to lay it out where the backyard’s grass line begins.

  
  


You tell Jeff you’ll be right back, retrieving your wet tree shirt before going into the house for a towel, a new shirt, and some lemonade, in that order.

  
  


Once you close the front door, you’re finally alone for the first time in a hot minute. The living room feels heady and hot. You take two steps forward before noticing a prominent shadow on the wall.

  
  


Your heartbeat jumps, and for a moment your brain assumes it’s because you’ve been startled, but when your heart refuses to settle and only seems to become more agitated, you can’t help the smarmy smile.

  
  


“How menacing,” you say into the air, and uncontrollable lilt to your voice. “The silhouette of an insidious man, and I’m all by my lonesome. Whatever shall I do.”

  
  


A terrible laugh sounds throughout the house. Your chest jumps like a jackrabbit on the run from a hound.

  
  


You give in to instinct and prance your way up to the second floor, feeling the brush of magma hidden in the shape of a hand at your nape as you go.

  
  


It’s honestly a little scary, but mostly it’s thrilling. A callback to more turbulent times, except you’re a willing and enthusiastic participant. You’re not usually one for grinning, but by the time Caliborn catches you three steps into your bedroom and bodily tosses you onto your bed, causing you to squawk loudly, you can’t seem to stop.

  
  


You’re allowed one more deadpan, “Oh no, my virtue,” before you’re completely smothered in a hot towel.

  
  


“IT REMAINS IN TACT.” Cal whips the towel off of you as soon as you’re close to dry. You get the feeling that your impeccable hairdo didn’t survive. “THOUGH FOR THE OTHER FACETS OF YOU. I CANNOT GUARANTEE WHOLENESS.”

  
  


“Ha ha.” After a good fake laugh, you sit up. Caliborn doesn’t bother to move away, his face hovering right above yours. His mouth peels itself open like he can’t keep his jaggedly golden fangs stuffed inside. “Hey. How you been in here. Lonely.”

  
  


His hand smooths itself over your chest, an action that barely registers due to how touched you remain there indefinitely. How automatic the feeling is, and how immediate your comfort responds. “YOU HAVE RUINED ME. SOLITUDE IS NO LONGER AS TIMELESS. AS IT USED TO BE.”

  
  


You raise an eyebrow. He gives in and sums that little diatribe up. “INDESCRIBABLY.”

  
  


You’re about to get mock-offended for the sake of further tomfoolery, except whatever conversation to be had is interrupted by the sounds of someone coming in through the front door, voices floating upstairs.

  
  


You barely have enough time to scramble off the bed and search for a shirt (Cal takes pity on you and launches a dark green tanktop at your face) before Hal comes gallivanting into the room, throwing himself on the bed without so much as a ‘gonna nap’ or a ‘ew why is there a wet spot here.’

  
  


You figure he’s got a migraine, so you draw the curtains for him, escaping downstairs mid-reshirting.

  
  


It’s Roxy loitering around in the kitchen that you see. You must’ve heard their voice when they first came in, because Hal’s surely would’ve been louder.

  
  


When they spot you, they say, “I had to pull a tick off of him. He went through several stages of grief.”

  
  


You nod in understanding. “Told ‘im to wear the damn bug spray.”

  
  


“He’s been here for how long and he still picks being bitten over being stinky?” You both share an exasperatedly fond look that lasts all of a second.

  
  


“Since the beginning of April, and yes. Yes he does.” You walk deeper into the small kitchen to hunt for further picnic paraphernalia. The stove is letting off so much heat you find yourself wondering if it wasn’t only the shenanigans that lured the kids outside, but the fresher air.

  
  


Since it’s not just you and Dave, you finally get to use the other cups in the Kiki’s Delivery Service pitcher set you bought so long ago that the design is flaking off. Lost momentarily in the nostalgia, your thumb fondly rubs against the dulled print.

  
  


Dave always wanted to try a differently colored cup every year, assuming that was a year he felt like staying home with you for his birthday. It looks like you had four kids using these cups, but in reality it was only Dave, being cute and greedy.

  
  


Funny how he’ll be fifteen this year. Less funny how you’ll be thirty…

  
  


You’re pulled out of your thoughts when you realize that Roxy is silently standing to the side, gazing at you openly. They don’t bother stopping once you meet eyes.

  
  


“What are you looking at?” You dare to ask, gesturing nervously with one of the little plastic cups as if its kawaii appearance will shield you.

  
  


“It’s just,” they start and stop. Shrug. “It’s just been so long.”

  
  


“Yea.” You set the cup down onto the counter with a dull _cl__o__nk._ “You keep saying that.”

  
  


Roxy hardly seems contrite, pulling at the sheared end of their pink-hued blonde hair. “Looks like you did good.”

  
  


“What?”

  
  


“Raising Dave.” They move closer, standing next to you at the counter, picking up one of the cups and looking at the design. As if they can see the years in it, viewing each birthday picnic it was used on like a slideshow. It’s mildly disorienting. “Like, I won’t equate it to me raising Rose or anything because technically our mom’s still there, she’s just… A little unmanageable?”

  
  


You say, “What do you mean,” because not asking would be criminal. It seems like Roxy wants you to ask, so that they can answer.

  
  


They cringe slightly, showing teeth without braces. You wonder when they got them off. “I dunno, it’s hard to explain. Sometimes when she’s sober – which isn’t fucking often – she’ll talk about this man with a really fancy name that makes him legit sound like a wizard. I can’t tell if she made him up or not. Anyway, she’s convinced he’ll come back some day. Even though I’ve never met him, I kinda hope I never have to.”

  
  


You don’t think it’s your place to interrupt, so you don’t.

  
  


“And get this: one time I heard her say that she ‘gave away' her 'baby.’ That’s fucking bizarre, and also terrible.” Roxy looks at you with an expression that says ‘right? I’m right.’ “So of course I ‘looked it up’, y’know, _wink wonk,”_ they really do double-wink at you, “but as far as me, the internet, and reality itself is concerned, Mom’s only ever had me ‘n Rose.”

  
  


Your nod is slow, not sure you understand but willingly taking in the information nonetheless.

  
  


“So, yea, she’s going off the bender. Rose will be eighteen in about two years – she can go do whatever she wants soon,” Roxy says with a wave, as if it’s hardly anything to care about.

  
  


“Thought you said you’d do the same once _you_ hit eighteen.” Freed from the spell of captivatingly horrifying conversation, you get the super huge jug of lemonade from the fridge and dole it out into the smaller travel jug. “What happened.”

  
  


Roxy blankly watches you pour, settling the cups and a bowl of ice inside of a basket you pulled down from on top of a cabinet as if they’ve never seen you do anything like it before. Maybe they haven’t. “...Plans change I guess.”

  
  


“Tell me about it. Kind of like how you were dead-set at changing your name to Roxas –“

  
  


Roxy makes the sound of a dying whale who is extremely embarrassed.

  
  


“– from Kingdom Hearts when you were sixteen,” you mercilessly continue.

  
  


Rox gives one more thankless groan. “Thankfully Rose has her big SIB around to keep her from making the same mistakes that I once did.”

  
  


“Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way –” You try to say, but you only make it about halfway through before you both start cracking up at the outdated but timeless reference.

  
  


Basket ready to be perilously carried outside all full of refreshments, you’re about to delegate carrying the full pitcher to Roxy when you realize they’re doing that mile-long stare thing again.

  
  


You both look at each other without saying anything for an inappropriate amount of time, in which you have no idea what they’re thinking, but you know what you’re thinking, and it’s something along the lines of, _‘I’ve literally got ice.’_

  
  


In the end, you’re uncertain Roxy would’ve said anything even if you’d coaxed them again, because you both uncomfortably shut your mouths at that point and haul the loot outside to the kids.

  
  


Obviously, they throw the ice at each other. Why else would you have brought it out here.

  
  


Dave seems to belatedly realize from your hovering that no, you didn’t bring him ice to use as an arsenal, and he chills out and starts putting it in people’s cups instead.

  
  


Because of all the time you wasted inside having several different conversations, Jeff is all but done with the car washing. You apologize to him for taking so long but he simply smiles at you, takes his hat off, retrieves the filled blue water balloon he was apparently hiding in there, then lobs it at his own son without looking.

  
  


It hits. All the kids scream at once.

  
  


With Hal inside presumably sleeping off a migraine (or a mood swing, but you’re not about to air his laundry like that) and the cake-baking heating everything up to an unreasonable degree that Caliborn is surely satisfied with, everybody stays outside for the rest of the afternoon.

  
  


“Y’know like…” Dave comments apropos of nothing, cupcake goop on his hands, “funky fresh doesn't make any sense. Usually when somebody says ‘funky’ they mean like, gross, but fresh means the opposite. So what the fuck does funky fresh mean?”

  
  


Rose, who is paying attention to her phone and nowhere else, says, “No, please, tell me more,” in a droll voice.

  
  


Jade is staring at the ground for no perceivable reason, and does not respond. Nor react at all. It’s a little worrying. You uncontrollably stare at the oddly limp girl from your seat on the Sittin’ Boulder, as if trying to catch her in the act of being alive.

  
  


Dave takes stock of his friends’ underwhelming reactions. “I feel like I’m unappreciated in my time.”

  
  


“It’s okay Dave.” John puts a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate you.”

  
  


Dave smiles a bit. “I guess that kinda makes me feel better –”

  
  


John pulls out an untied water balloon, pushing at the swollen bottom so that water rapidly squirts out all over Dave’s unsuspecting face. _“Honk!_ Made ya’ look.”

  
  


Dave just sits there, face dripping, before he turns to you. “Bro we have to kick John out.”

  
  


Instead of giving a dip about any of that, you ask, “Is Jade okay.”

  
  


Rose looks up from her phone for once. “She’s fine, she’s just got narcolepsy mixed with hypersomnia.”

  
  


Sure enough, around the time you feel something nudge your dizzying awareness of the spatial variety that stretches far too wide these days, Jade seems to ‘wake up’ from her open-eye’d micro-nap, drowsily asking, “Do I hear a car? I thought we were, like, really deep in the woods?”

  
  


At first you’re panicked, as you tend to be, but soon you see a familiar little Toyota round the driveway’s last hill.

  
  


It’s Kanaya. She brings Rosa’s freshly made snickerdoodle cookies. On the down low, she admits that she also brings instructions from Karkat to gauge the success levels of the party.

  
  


Forsooth! The teenaged drama is never far away.

  
  


“Sorry to cut and run, but mom needs me to do a few more errands before the shops close. They won’t be open tomorrow,” she mentions with a light tone of bitterness, but with a world of maturity that you feel mildly proud of even if you barely had a fraction of a part in cultivating it.

  
  


But still, you remind yourself that teenagers (and some adults) are not unlike big children who enjoy parties and sugar. You insist she at least gets a cup of lemonade and a cupcake before she goes, since she braved the driveway just to deliver the cookies. She accepts, and carries the covered tray inside, trailed by all of the kids like piranhas, Dave barely remembering to tell them who Kanaya even is.

  
  


Rose, who is still staring down at her phone even as she walks, accidentally gets her foot caught on the back of Kanaya’s long skirt as they make it to the entrance-way.

  
  


Kanaya pitches forward, tripping, the tray flying in a smooth arc without tilting as if she was trying to save it before she saved herself. Her palms _smack_ loudly against the hardwood floor.

  
  


Most people aren’t watching the tray, they’re watching the girl falling like so many priceless heirlooms being freed from their glass case, so thankfully almost everybody but one or two of the kids see Cal catch it, miraculously delivering it to the kitchen counter. He makes sure to give it a rough landing, a few of the cookies sliding out, but the majority of them and the plate are copacetic.

  
  


As you and Dave help Kanaya up, Rose looks horrified.

  
  


“I am _so_ sorry,” Rose says. “I hadn’t meant to do that. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you…?”

  
  


Kanaya, no worse for wear except for some dirt on her knees that she dusts off and her reddened palms, nods at Rose primly, looking for all in the world like she didn’t just kiss floor. “Yes, that’s alright. It happens when one looks at their phone instead of what’s right in front of them.”

  
  


A spark of tension catches the air.

  
  


As if in response, Rose pockets her phone and then folds her hands in front of her stomach in a demure pose, although her smile is more like ice. “Of course. When what’s right in front isn’t much to look at or is of little importance, I suppose it is easy to want to look at literally anything else.”

  
  


Another spark of tension. Dave gives a little “ooh snap” that Jade elbows him for, but it seems she does it because she wants to hear what Kanaya will say, and not because she cares about whether Dave has morals that would be found in trash reality shows.

  
  


Kanaya dips her head slightly, which isn’t hard to do considering she’s talking to someone she’s nearly a head taller than. “I forgive you for your moment of weakness, then, although its outcome was not exactly what I had penned in on my tight schedule.”

  
  


“One must be flexible when dealing with unexpected variables such as a tiny doorway,” says Rose. Somehow, her tone of voice alone has you offended on your tiny doorway’s behalf.

  
  


“I think I’ve reached my maximum flexibility for today.”

  
  


“How commendable.”

  
  


“If that’s so, then I’ll gladly accept an award for falling flat on my face in front of a gathering of people similar to my age and some of whom I see at least once every week which naturally causes the humiliation of the situation to be tenfold without ruining my mom’s prized cookies,” Kanaya goads.

  
  


Rose pauses for a fraction of a second longer than she did her last response. It’s like she loses imaginary points just from that hesitation alone. “I’m afraid there is no such award prepared.”

  
  


Kanaya bluntly says, “Fuck.”

  
  


Rose hides her mouth from the snort and crinkled little grin that comes out, but she quickly composes herself back to the icy mien of barely-there interest. “Since you’re so emotionally distraught about it, I have a compromise for you – let my people get in contact with your people and I’ll see if they can work something out.”

  
  


Kanaya seems fine with this. They tap their phones together, automatically transferring contact information. It’s visually obvious that Rose has the newest model while Kanaya’s is several years out of date.

  
  


Kanaya takes a purple cupcake and a plastic cup of lemonade and smoothly retreats to her car, where basically all of you can witness her having a momentary breakdown over how awkward that all was before she’s circling the driveway and driving away like a pro.

  
  


After that quality entertainment, the magically intact cookies are devoured, their magically intactness unquestioned. Rose eats only one, but she looks like she savors it with a nefarious expression, like she can’t wait to meet Kanaya again if only to engage in a mutual dunking-on challenge.

  
  


You briefly go back upstairs with much less urgency than you did the time before last. You check on Hal. He’s awake, but seems reluctant to acknowledge you, much less move from his sprawled position on the bed.

  
  


“You want something for dinner?” You ask him since it’s on your mind already. “I was thinking about getting pizza for the kids, but we’ve still got leftovers you can eat.”

  
  


Hal’s got a hunted expression on his face, mixed with something like pain, and it’s uncomfortable for you to see. He eventually nods, then plows his face back into the pillow.

  
  


Coming out of the bedroom finds Dave also leaving the bathroom, flicking his hands as if he didn’t properly dry them.

  
  


You reach over and force his hand to _thwap_ against his own face, getting his chin wet. “Bad habit li’l bro.”

  
  


“_Wuh!”_ Dave gives you an utterly dismayed look. “I wasn’t doin’ nothiiiiing-uuh.”

  
  


You harshly exhale air in hilarity, petting him on the head instead. “Sorry, sorry. But seriously, wash and dry your hands properly.”

  
  


“Make it up to me,” Dave demands, reaching over and hugging you before you’ve given a yes or no. “Is anybody looking? I can’t ruin my rock solid reputation. Are they looking??”

  
  


You say, “No,” even though like all of his friends can glance up and see where you’re both standing.

  
  


Predictably, Dave drags you down for a little kiss, something you’re certain that if he hasn’t been scared off from doing by this age, he may never grow out of. Can’t say you’re torn up about it. You nuzzle against his temple and give an over-exaggerated snorting sniff that has him pulling away as if you’ve sincerely gotten snot in his hair or something.

  
  


He only gets a few seconds to look disgusted before he realizes that all of his friends saw everything. Jade cheekily waves up at him while John makes a fake gagging noise. Rose is recording with her phone.

  
  


“You told me they couldn’t see!” He accuses you, eyes full of Teen Betrayal.

  
  


“No, I said that they weren’t looking. There’s a difference. Get downstairs, Hal needs his nap.”

  
  


In delivering him to his friends, where he will surely be given an exactly deserving amount of humility and no more, you pop into the kitchen to see how Jeff is doing with that cake of his.

  
  


It seems he’s in the middle of decorating it. Roxy is helping him place dollops of colorful icing in primary colors all over its base white cream. They’re strangely accurate, almost unnervingly so, and otherwise fully concentrating on the task.

  
  


Jeff notices you’ve entered the danger zone and approaches you. “I wanted to ask you if you plan on doing anything special this Easter Sunday?”

  
  


Right, that’s tomorrow. No wonder Kanaya was unimpressed. “Not typically, no.”

  
  


“In that case, would it be alright if I take charge of making breakfast tomorrow?” Jeff visibly brightens and wipes his hands on a towel. It is not ugly and yellow and questionable in its very existence. “I don’t want to come back from the hotel unreasonably early, but I can pick up a few things on the way.”

  
  


It’s hardly a difficult choice. “Yea, sure. It’s just that my brother has some dietary constraints you’ll need to be aware of.” Not to mention whether Hal will trust him enough to eat his food – Hal’s notoriously paranoid about that.

  
  


Considering how Dad used to try to give Hal food he couldn’t eat and shamed him for not being able to eat whatever, you don’t blame him.

  
  


“I’m well-versed in working around that, not to worry,” Jeff placates you with.

  
  


“I’ll worry at least a little bit,” you say as you imagine Hal turning his nose up at whatever Jeff has in mind, even if you vet it first.

  
  


When you collect everybody’s choices of topping and go to call it in to the only pizza place in town, you run into a slight problem.

  
  


The kids all wanna go with you to pick it up.

  
  


You raise your eyebrows at the congregation of hopeful-eye’d teenagers, two out of the four of them acting like they’re too cool to care but are crowding you all the same. They’re not bothering to argue they case, like they already know you’ll give in or something.

  
  


“Y’all realize it’s just into town and back, right?” You shake your head at their unbroken air of excitement, looking past them to the guardians. “Thoughts?”

  
  


Roxy shrugs. “I’m alright with it. I mean, like, unless there’s a secret vampire cult that’s out there looking for willing sacrifices…” They wag their eyebrows at Rose, who turns away in a huff as if she didn’t hear the teasing.

  
  


Jeff is less easy to please.

  
  


Dave had promised his friends a ride in the bed of the truck on the downlow, but Jeff puts a firm stop to that, standing by to make sure all four kids pile into the backseat. Rose is the biggest, and has to sit up front with you, a position you honestly cannot tell if she’s pleased, neutral, or displeased about. She simply nods at you with an ineffable smile.

After the sixth reassurance from John about how it’ll be, “Fine, dad, it’ll be fine, I swear!” you take your evening charges with you and you’re off, windows all down, listening to them chatter in the back. It may not be the voices you’re used to aside from Dave’s, but it’s familiar enough that you pretty much zone out.

  
  


Until Dave suddenly calls out, “Bro, stop here!”

  
  


You barely keep yourself from slamming on the brakes, coming to as gentle of a stop as one can in a pickup truck on uneven gravel. You turn in your seat, accidentally slamming your elbow into the back of Rose’s headrest with the haste of it. “What.”

  
  


Dave says, “Okay, everybody get out. Y’all’re gonna experience the _real_ bumpkin livin’.” And then they all get out and pile into the bed of the truck.

  
  


You sit there and watch this in complicated silence.

  
  


Technically you did promise Jeff that you’d take care of the kids, specifically John, and would not endanger them unnecessarily. But also technically Jeff can’t see y’all right now, because Jeff and Roxy are stuck back at the house, and the only person back at the house with a car who could theoretically come chase you down is Hal, who is out of commission as far as you know.

  
  


Dave tries to pop open the small, shittily rusted window in the back windshield so that you can supposedly hear them if you need to, but he struggles with it so much that you debate getting out and doing it for him. Thankfully Jade comes to the rescue and pops it open with barely any strain on her part.

  
  


Deciding to live and let lie for right now, you call back, “Everybody situated?”

  
  


A chorus of affirmation greets you. Before you put it back into drive, though, you say, “Dave.”

  
  


Dave’s head pokes through the window with a “yuh?”

  
  


You consider him for a moment. “You’re in trouble later.”

  
  


He hisses in response, but ultimately mumbles, “Yea, that makes sense,” and then goes back to sitting with his friends.

  
  


You’re not one to punish Dave in front of other people, but he’s definitely going to be at least a little grounded for this stunt. Right after you help him pull it off, that is.

  
  


In the meantime, you cruise around town with a bunch of kids in the back of your truck like you’re the neighborhood Cool Cousin, hoping you don’t run into anybody you know.

  
  


Halfway down the driveway on the return, you stop the truck again and everybody gets back in their seats as if it never happened at all.

* * *

By the time dinner and cake is consumed and John’s presents have been properly appreciated and played with (including some marshmallow launchers that are fun to use, but a bitch to clean up after), it’s closing in on half-past ten at night. The kids, most of them still jetlagged to some degree, are all losing steam.

  
  


Jeff and Roxy return to the hotel for the night, leaving you and Hal as the sole adult supervision of the household (as far as they know, anyways.) Rose tries to keep decorum as the oldest and depart with them but is quickly outvoted and practically strong-armed into sleeping over. She only seems to regret it when she realizes that everybody but Hal is going to be downstairs in sleeping bags on the floor.

  
  


You stay awake until the kids all drop off into sleep, which takes over an hour despite some of them tapping out earlier than others. John and Rose, the most recent fliers, collapse first, with Jade quickly following, possibly due to her hypersomnia. With no one left to goof off with, Dave has no choice but to join them.

  
  


Jade sprawls in her sleep a lot like Dave, only she does it on her stomach. John and Rose bracket each side of them, curled up in opposite directions like bookends. You take a picture.

  
  


You consider the morality of keeping it versus deleting it.

  
  


You keep the picture.

  
  


You stagnate in the middle of the living room, doing that creepy thing where you watch Dave’s ballooning and deflating chest. As if he’ll stroke out when you aren’t looking.

  
  


Indecisively you find yourself debating the pros and cons of pulling a ‘First Night Here’ stunt and sleeping outside. Something about being in the same room as a bunch of unfamiliar and unconscious teenagers, even if one of those is yours, doesn’t sit right with you. It’s an instinct, not one born of exact logic. In fact, it may be a form of self-consciousness rather than of courtesy.

  
  


It’s too open. You hug your pillow to your chest.

  
  


Maybe if you go outside, you and Cal could –

  
  


“Look at you,” Hal’s low-toned voice spills over the top of the stairway, causing you to stagger backwards on reflex. “Awkwardly shuffling about like you’re not the man that owns this damn house. Afraid they’ll start making fun of you in their sleep? That they’ll wake up and draw cartoon penises on your face?”

  
  


You feel like shrugging would be gauche, so you simply clutch your pillow and do something with your eyebrows that conveys something or another.

  
  


Hal shakes his head. “If I know anything about teenagers, then at least one of them is only pretending to be asleep, and is waiting for you to get the fuck out of dodge so that the true midnight shenanigans can occur.”

  
  


“I sincerely doubt you know more about teenagers than I do.” But still, you glance back down at the kids.

  
  


Dave isn’t even snoring yet. His arms are close to being tangled with Jade’s. Although not convinced, you squint.

  
  


“Why not sleep up here,” says Hal, like the thought only now occurred to him. You doubt it did. “I’m sure you’ve missed your horrible boxspring-less mattress on stilts as it has missed you.”

  
  


He disappears into your room without a backwards glance, leaving the door open as if he expects you to come scampering up there like a good boy. For a moment you consider stubbornly staying down here on the couch to keep watch on the kids, but even with Hal hovering over your other options it still isn’t that appealing of a choice.

  
  


Before you go you drop your pillow into the middle of the kid pile. Jade latches onto it immediately, turning away from Dave and more towards Rose, thereby hopefully negating any ‘oops we were asleep and started to cuddle!’ that may have otherwise occurred.

  
  


Dave frowns in his light sleep, turning more towards John. John smacks his lips and grabs at Dave’s wandering hands. They both settle once more.

  
  


...You’re sure it’ll be fine.

  
  


Walking up the stairs you’ve traversed every day feels lonely, in a way. Perhaps it’s because you’re expecting a heated presence to shadow you that doesn’t – when you’re with Hal, Caliborn could not be further apart. You don’t know what has happened to cause this, but you doubt it’s because Cal seeks to allow you the illusion of privacy.

  
  


You think it must not be all that hard to avoid someone who doesn’t know that you exist.

  
  


In breaching the threshold and closing the door, you feel yourself concede to let be what may, even if the only thing Hal is doing is standing next to his arm receptacle, all soft glowing red details and perfect blackness. In his eyes, however, is something conversant.

  
  


You sit down on your bed gracelessly. You’ve forgotten how much the cheap frame squeaks in the time you’ve essentially kicked yourself out of your own room for your brother’s ‘sake.’ More like your own sake when you think about it.

  
  


Expecting Hal to start in on some hoshposhmagosh, you’re surprised when he simply uses the receptacle to detach not one, but both arms.

  
  


“As a show of good faith,” he claims, kneeling on the bed before you can think to stand up and make a run for it. “Here I am, crippling myself fully in foreign territory so that you unclench a little bit for once. Go on.” He faceplants into the pillow, voice muffled yet still obnoxiously pronounced. “Tell me how generous I am.”

  
  


“You’re not seriously thinkin’ I’m about to play slumber party with you just because –” You have to reroute your priorities when Hal kicks his legs out and entraps your stomach with them, his oddly dexterous toes digging into your paltry flesh.

  
  


Ah, right. He once learned how to write with those.

  
  


Hal makes a robotic-sounding victory tune with his mouth while you sit there and try to fight against him by pinching at the bottom of each of his crunched toes. It’s not very effective. You go for his knees.

  
  


When you finally remind Hal enough times that yes he _is_ ticklish and it _is_ his weakness, he lets you go and defensively curls up against the pillows as if you’re about to come for his neck next. You keep your fingers poised in prime tickling position as a warning.

  
  


“Honestly Dirk,” he complains, because he’s always been a sore loser, “what else are you going to do? Go back downstairs and intrude on the only time they’ll have to be alone here like you’re the camp counselor that drew the short straw? Quit acting like I’m planning on doing something horrible to you – if anyone here is the most vulnerable, it’s me.”

  
  


“You’ve created a situation in which you are outwardly vulnerable on purpose in order to lead me into a false sense of safety and control.”

  
  


“For your benefit!” He sounds tetchy. He uncurls and looks for a moment like he debates kicking you again. He doesn’t. “I’m even keeping to your ridiculous ‘bed time’ schedule. You can use my defenseless tummy as a pillow like you like to do so that I can hog the actual pillow. It’s not a ‘win-win scenario’ because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but, Dirk,” he waggles himself about, _“I’ve got no arms.”_

  
  


“That’s never stopped you before.”

  
  


“I’d argue that it did, in fact, stop me quite a lot, but I know you don’t care to hear those depressing tangents, much less acknowledge what you cannot.” Hal scoffs. “I see how it is. Big bad lonesome man forgot how to share a bed, huh?”

  
  


The ‘just like old times’ goes unsaid.

  
  


In the silence you’ve unwittingly created, Hal gets comfortable. He essentially bares his throat – an action he used to be forced into, but now does willingly.

  
  


You’re touched. Really, you are. You hate it, hate knowing how in his eyes you must have become some wounded, crazed person in between one forsaken action and the next.

  
  


You like to think that you don’t know why you did it.

  
  


You go along with it – it’s not smart, considering how heavy you’re made to sleep. You’re not confident whether Cal would be capable of subtly waking you should Hal actually try to do something. What ‘something’ you are worried about, you find yourself unsure of.

  
  


But chasing kids (and their respective guardians) around all day has stretched you thinner than you could have possibly prepared for. Looking at Hal, all internally crunched like he does when he’s only expecting the worst, reminds you of a bed and a home you would rather not think about, because you aren’t sure you currently trust yourself to be rational about the memory.

  
  


While you lay down with far less reluctance than you think wise showing, you unwillingly remember a time when Hal being bound to share his every waking and sleeping moment with you was rote. Was necessary. Who else was going to take care of Hal after the accident? Make sure that he was, if not anything close to happy, then at least safe and healthy for one more day. Definitely not Dad.

  
  


Settling your head onto his stomach in a long-familiar motion, you find it entirely too comforting for such a time of your lives that Hal most likely does not remember half as fondly as you do, if you consider it ‘fondness’ at all.

  
  


Hal says something about how feverishly warm you are. You don’t respond because you’re too busy feeling taken apart by something so simple that you surprise yourself with how near tears you are.

  
  


After the accident, you simply regarded taking care of Hal as a non-lucrative form of survival. If you didn’t, Hal would surely die, and that was not conductive towards exploiting him in the future. Then again, you were also a thirteen-year-old asshole with an ego too large for one person’s body, an id that required scratching, and a corrupted superego.

  
  


As an adult, you now understand that neither of you should have been put into a situation like that in the first place.

  
  


Hal breathes deeply, steadily, like he’s counting each second of a breath in and a breath out. He used to do that a lot when he lost all control. You don’t wonder why he’s doing it now because you know you won’t like the answer. He’s warm, and softer than you expected for a guy constantly lifting two heavy metal arms most days of his life, but he’s no longer as small as he used to be. He’s not as helplessly angry or constantly afraid or spiraling existentially while high off of something you don’t know from who he got it.

  
  


You listen to the familiar arrhythmic heart beat with your eyes already shut.

  
  


You’re tired. You miss your own bed. A bed in a place you shouldn’t want to revisit, you should want to forget. You have forgotten.

  
  


You like to think that you don’t know why you did it. That continues to be a lie you tell yourself. Whether or not it holds up forever is subject – whether or not it _needs_ to hold up forever is subject.

  
  


For the first time in a long time, you _want_ to remember.

  
  


...But you don’t dream.

* * *

Waking up is odd.

  
  


It’s been a while since you found yourself stirred to consciousness by the sounds of another (living) body so close to yours you’re practically lost in them, curled entirely around their torso with a chin grazing intermittently against your head alongside their breathing. You hear their lungs inflate with the slightest of rattles. It is hands-down the most amazing sound you think you’ve ever heard, and it holds a weight inside of you that you underestimated it for.

  
  


It doesn’t take you full awareness to identify the body as Hal – the heartbeat, the smell of him, the fact that there’s no arm for you to crush under your shoulder. If you uncurl, you bet you could feel the ugly ass blood pressure socks on his feet and everything.

  
  


He’s not awake yet; his heartbeat is too even, his body limp. It’s both a consoling yet dejected existence in this snippet of quiet. It feels a lot like you’re capable of doing everything and nothing at all at once.

  
  


A simmering heat greets you deep within your chest, but it does not abate the solitary air of this moment. Instead, it seems to only make it worse, like something you’ve been refusing to think about has ambushed you with unwanted thoughts and now you can think of nothing else.

  
  


You are shallowly disturbed. You reach across Hal’s chest until you can hug him almost like a stuffed animal. Thank fuck he’s asleep, or else you’d never hear the end of –

  
  


Startlingly, a vision lays itself over yours before you’ve properly opened your eyes.

  
  


It’s of the kids downstairs, bathed in dim early morning light. Rose is already up, though all she appears to be doing is sitting next to a passed out Jade while scrolling on her phone.

  
  


The vision sharpens near painfully. As if Caliborn zooms in, the view of her phone’s screen comes into focus. Like in a dream, the text is theoretically readable but nearer to gibberish than any language the human mind can parse.

  
  


Still, it’s enough for you to get the gist: she’s texting Roxy. You doubt it’s about what they’re having for breakfast.

  
  


You’re snapped out of it at the same time Hal’s half-asleep voice goes, _“Owch,_ Dirk. Chill out, you’re hurting me.”

  
  


You are; you’re holding him so tightly that the strain of your muscles hurts even you. You let go, but are stopped from sitting up by Hal doing it first, leaning over you like an observing bird of prey. You’re no longer relaxed enough to not have a sense of danger to fight against.

  
  


“Have a nightmare,” Hal asks. Or perhaps states with only the barest sense of pretending like it’s a question.

  
  


You don’t say anything. Hal looks like he thinks he knows the answer either way – unfortunately for him, he is wrong.

  
  


He squints sleepily, his eye bags pronounced. “Don’t I get a good morning or something?”

  
  


“Or something.” You roll out from under him until you can sit up. It makes you realize that you never properly undressed last night. You fish a new pair of pants out from the drawers under your bed.

  
  


You get dressed. You use the antique mirror Cal installed next to Dave’s painting above your desk to guide you, even though you have all of five outfit options which consist of tanktops and sweatpants with perhaps a tartan jacket or a pair of exercise shorts to spice it up.

  
  


You’re in the middle of doing your hair when Hal also gets up, standing right in front of you at the exact same height as you so that your entire view is blocked. You drop your arms.

  
  


“What a strange painting,” he remarks. You lean over his shoulder and watch his identical face move in the mirror. It’s simultaneously befitting yet nauseating for reasons that aren’t his fault. “It’s the only art you have hung up in here, despite your career, so I’m going to deduce that this is something that Dave made?”

  
  


“Yup.” You don’t elaborate. You don’t think you’re capable of explaining that specific painting. If he hasn’t met the resident spook, he definitely isn’t ready to acknowledge the worse things creeping about in the woods.

  
  


Hal seems to drop it, walking the short distance to his luggage and arm receptacle. You fully expect him to put his now fully-charged arms on, but instead he uses his feet to unzip and prop open his suitcase. Neatly folded clothes sit in labeled bundles of bright blue marker. It’s not Hal’s handwriting, either by foot or hand, unless Hal suddenly learned calligraphy. Then again, you wouldn’t put it past him to learn it out of spite.

  
  


As if you have a questioning aura about you, Hal says, “It’s easier to get clothes on and off when there aren’t any cinching joints to get fabric stuck into yet.”

  
  


“Makes sense,” you say, if only for something to say at all as you watch Hal begin to struggle out of his overly large t-shirt and a pair of shorts that are so big you’re surprised they stayed on all night. “Hey.”

  
  


“Hey yourself.”

  
  


You breathe heavily out of your nose. You move towards him and pull the shirt off of him without fanfare.

  
  


“Owww,” he bitches, and at first you think you’ve actually hurt him and you’ve made a mistake by trying to act like you have his consent to do this after so long, but then he goes, “My delicate skin might chafe! Or you could catch on my earring!”

  
  


You can’t help but smile. “So that’s where Dave gets it.”

  
  


Hal has two seconds to figure out an expression to lighthouse you in the face with before you’re unceremoniously pulling off his shorts as well.

  
  


“What’ll you do next? Bathe me?” He asks in an overblown intonation as you grab the outfit he had already been pulling out and start to unfold it.

  
  


You slip the distressed red sleeveless shirt with some anime’s name on the front that you don’t know over his head. “No.”

  
  


It need not be said that the days when you used to bathe him have long passed. May they rest in fucking peace.

  
  


Hal makes a disparaging noise before obediently stepping into the underwear and pants.

  
  


Again, you presume he’s about to put on his arms, but instead he seems to pause whatever he intended to do and simply stares at you. It’s an expectant gaze bereft of the malice and heartbreak it once held.

  
  


As if taking some cue you haven’t had to parse for years, you retrieve his left arm from the receptacle, marvel at how heavy it is and the quelling intimacy of holding a literal piece of Hal in your hand, and then try your best at remembering how to re-attach it to him. It definitely operates differently from the one you made. An improvement, surely, but alienating.

  
  


You expected him to make snide remarks or comments on how you’re doing it wrong, so when he doesn’t you immediately feel off-balance.

  
  


It’s quiet. You get his left arm in and working. You non-verbally make sure that he’s fine with it – he nods. You get his right arm and insert that for him as well, even though he could do it now that his left one is in. He could’ve done it all along because his arm receptacle is literally designed to be used alone.

  
  


But he didn’t. He wanted you to do it.

  
  


As if nothing world-shaking just happened, Hal uses his fully functioning arms to retrieve his hair comb. He hogs the mirror again. You decide to give up and leave your own hair down for today.

  
  


“Look at me.” He turns himself side to side for the impertinent gaze of his reflection. His hair is very yellow and his shirt is very red. “I need a fucking trim.”

  
  


“Bitch, you look like a McDonald’s fries.”

  
  


He turns suddenly as if he’s about to reach out and smack you but you’re too quick for him, practically launching yourself out of the bedroom.

  
  


“Guess you traded speed for power, huh Hal,” you cheese back at him as you escape to the lower floor.

  
  


All of the kids are still sleeping except for the aforementioned oldest. You can’t feel Caliborn in the room.

  
  


Rose continues to peck at her phone as if she didn’t witness that entire event from the corner of her eye.

  
  


You look at her. She looks at you.

  
  


She must be of a like soul or something, because she gives you a restrained smirk before laying down flat on her back with her arms crossed, not unlike a corpse. Pretending to be asleep, then.

  
  


As Hal comes down the stairs at a lackadaisical pace, no doubt in attempts to annoy you somehow – which, jokes on him. You’ve raised a toddler – you make sure to note out loud, “Kids’re probably waking up soon.”

  
  


“I doubt any teenager would willingly be awake this early,” Hal sighs as if you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Ass.

  
  


Perfectly on cue, Rose says, “Oh? Pardon me for not fitting your obsolete standards, _vieux __m__onsieur.”_ She rises straight up like a vampire from its coffin.

  
  


Peak. You give her a subtle thumbs up for her services. She has a twinkle in her eyes that you enjoy.

  
  


You guess Dave’s friends are alright.

  
  


Hal acts unaffected. “Dirk, don’t just stand there. Offer the _la demoiselle_ some morning tea.”

  
  


Well, as unaffected as whatever that was. “All I’ve got is oolong,” you offer her. “You could always have milk though.”

  
  


Rose plucks her overnight bag out of the pile on the couch. “That’s fine, I’ll have the tea, thank you.” She disappears into the bathroom.

  
  


It seems she was waiting for either yourself or Dave to be awake before she started wandering about the house. You go put the kettle on and then come back to the living room where Hal is standing in between the windows and John on the end of the kid line-up.

  
  


He turns when he hears you coming, looking down briefly before pointing himself back towards the window to view the pale morning. “Dave really does look like you when he’s asleep.”

  
  


You unwillingly feel sappy for all of five seconds before you realize. “Motherfucker, _y__ou_ look like me.”

  
  


Hal gives you a smarmy grin, shimmying his shoulders up and down in victory.

  
  


By the time Rose comes back down, face makeup’d once more, you realize that you’ve forgotten to get the tea ready. Something inside of you keeps you calm. Returning to the kitchen has you finding a fully ready mug of tea, courtesy of the ever-watching house spook. Lovely.

  
  


Rose takes a sip, then a deeper gulp. “This is very nice. Are you also a connoisseur of the art of tea?”

  
  


You raise an eyebrow before you get control of yourself. “Not really. Must’ve just gotten lucky making it.”

  
  


From the way Rose looks at you over the rim of her mug, you belatedly come to the understanding that she’s making fun of you. That she already somehow knows that it was Caliborn that made her tea.

  
  


Once one is up, the other kids are all up. Dave gets berated by John and Jade for hogging the bathroom. Dave responds, “This is my bathroom, goddamn! I gotta take my time moisturizing, something neither of you heathens understand!” To which he gets punished for by his friends using his facial skincare as common hand moisturizer. It’s brutal stuff.

  
  


Much like the time they left last night, Jeff and Roxy return at around ten AM in possibly the only taxi this town has, carrying a few shopping bags.

  
  


Their flights home are all this afternoon, with Jade’s being the latest at three PM, so breakfast ends up being a quick affair coupled with re-packing. Dave doesn’t have to rush around finding the odds and ends because he lives here and also because he enjoys being unhelpful, so he gets to eat his eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit in relative peace.

  
  


Jeff is true to his word, making Hal a palatable sweet oatmeal with lots of fruit. Hal, who was entirely unaware of your deal with Jeff until the moment the bowl is set in front of him, consumes it without trouble and appears to be pleasantly surprised.

  
  


The taxi will take Jeff, John, Roxy, and Rose to the airport, but Hal and Dave will take Jade later on.

  
  


In the middle of loading luggage into the green van, you and Roxy find yourselves alone together outside for a moment. You don’t know about them, but you’re finding it hard to say anything worthwhile, either because you’re scared someone will come walking outside suddenly and overhear something they shouldn’t or because you’re plain a coward.

  
  


If Roxy has anything to say, it’s waylaid by Calliope swooping down and landing heavily on your right shoulder like this is a goddamn petting zoo.

  
  


Roxy’s mouth pops open in a surprised ‘O’. Neither of you speak or move for an awkward beat before they say, “Uh, Dirk?”

  
  


Talons dig into your exposed flesh. “Yes.”

  
  


“Is… Is that your crow?”

  
  


“No.”

  
  


“Okay.” Roxy stares. Calliope stares back. You’re stuck in the middle like a post nailed into the ground. “Didn’t know crows had red eyes.”

  
  


Fuck mysteries. “They don’t.”

  
  


Roxy gives you a confused look, their countenance shifting from wary to overtly interested. They raise one hand and reach towards the crow.

  
  


You nearly leap away, or smack their hand down, or something, but in the end you do nothing as Roxy delicately runs a finger over Calliope’s plumage. She sits still. Good bird…?

  
  


Once Roxy has their fill in petting what is equivalent to a woman’s ghost, Calliope takes flight by pushing down heavily onto your shoulder and smacking you in the face with her broad wingspan.

  
  


Roxy laughs shortly at your ungainly sputtering. “Do the crows around here usually do that? There was one in your window the other day, too.”

  
  


You juggle your options. “Not all of them, but some of them don’t seem to fear humans.” You shrug. “Dave likes them.”

  
  


“Hey Dirk.”

  
  


You blink over at them at the sudden call. “Rox?”

  
  


“You know that… you and I can start over anytime, right?” They give you a wan smile, completely out of place on what you know of their face. “It might not be the same as it used to be, and we may never be as close as when we were kids, but that doesn’t mean it’s ruined forever.”

  
  


They hand you a folded piece of paper. You open it in something of a daze, reading off their phone number, usernames on all the hottest chat programs, and even the same exact email they’ve had since they were sixteen. As if they think all that happened was that you misplaced this information. As if they’re willing to pretend like you never fucked up in the first place.

  
  


The note lightly crinkles in your hand. “…I’ll think about it.”

  
  


You’re allowed to turn away from them as the others file outside, tucking the paper into your pocket as you avoid Roxy’s eyes.

  
  


You tell yourself that they don’t deserve to get caught up in your shit, never have, and you believe it.

  
  


There’s a few misty eyes among the kids at the idea of being separated after having just met, but they all remarkably hold it together, even if Jade goes on something of a serial hugging spree, capturing even the adults she barely knows in between her ‘strong little girl arms.’

  
  


In your opinion you’ve already had your goodbye spiel with Roxy (even if Calliope dropped in and made it a hundred times more unnerving) so you’re off to shake Jeff’s hand.

  
  


“Thanks for having us, Dirk.” Jeff’s gives some of the most professional hand shakes you think you’ve ever experienced. It’s terrible. “John seems to have enjoyed himself.”

  
  


“And now I can finally let my peanut butter out of jail,” you quip back. Jeff lets out an amused chuckle.

  
  


Dave and Jade stand at the beginning-end of the driveway, waving goodbye for as long as they can see the taxi as it departs, which turns out to be a solid two minutes before the car crests the hill and disappears behind tree cover and several bends.

  
  


There’s not much time between John and Rose departing and when Jade is set to leave, so the kids spend it outside exploring the backyard and the fringes of the woods, talking about things you decide not to eavesdrop on. You spot them taking a selfie inside of the tool shed before you banish yourself to Dave’s Bench.

  
  


Last you saw, Hal was licking the blue off a cupcake the way a cat timidly licks an ice cube. You leave him to it.

  
  


Later, you load all of Jade’s luggage into the rental car’s sad boot. You then have to practically shove the kids into the backseat once you realize they’ve been playing you, wasting time on finding something they swear Jade’s lost in the yard just so that they could be conveniently late getting Jade to the airport.

  
  


“Sorry kids, but the airport doesn’t care if you have an adorable reason for being late, it only cares about making you buy another ticket,” you scold them with as you finally get everybody corralled in their places and shut the door on them, waving them off down the driveway.

  
  


And finally, you are alone.

  
  


Or, well, whatever constitutes as alone for a guy like you.

  
  


You try not to look too eager, but you can’t help rushing back inside and making what is probably an ill-advised bodily leap towards the couch.

  
  


Caliborn catches you halfway there like he’s catching a fish leaping from a river, most of the pressure going towards your abdomen, causing you to make this horrible “huuAGH” noise. It’s not exactly your sexiest moment.

  
  


“THE CHILDREN HAVE LEFT.” He tosses you those last few inches face-first down onto the couch, then coats your back like a blanket just out of the dryer. “AS HAS YOUR MEDDLING DOPPELGANGER.”

  
  


Hot damn. “Don’t let him hear you call him that.” You snuggle down into one of the pillows Dave forgot to take back up to his bed. You let yourself pretend it feels like somebody’s chin digging into the crown of your head instead of the reality. “Y’know what I’m thinkin’ big guy?”

  
  


“ALWAYS.” Caliborn’s answering noise suffuses deep into your bones, rattling them down to the marrow, making your muscles relax in a way nothing else can. You close your eyes.

  
  


A few seconds later, you open them. Caliborn’s heat and weight is gone, and you’re in the same position on the couch.

  
  


At first you’re confused, but then you realize you can hear Hal’s car coming down the driveway, and notice that it’s over an hour after you first laid down.

  
  


Well. He wasn’t kidding – he really did know what you were thinking. You wanted a damn nap.

  
  


After stretching, which illicits a terrifyingly loud crack from your back that genuinely startles you, you preemptively go outside to welcome back Dave and Hal.

  
  


Hal doesn’t bother greeting you after parking the car, merely gives you a tired look and walks past you to go indoors. You bet you can predict that his trajectory will be much like your own was – straight towards the nearest cushioned surface for a nap.

  
  


Dave has a similar response, falling into your arms without saying much. You oblige him in his seeking of comfort, certain that although he had fun, he may have mixed feelings about the hurt that comes afterwards. Having online friends can be like that, although unlike yourself as a kid Dave has friends both locally and abroad.

  
  


He detaches and stares pensively into the forest. You gaze at his side-profile, taking in the gentle slope of his wide nose and the soft round of his mouth and cheekbones, unwittingly recalling Hal’s earlier observation, teasing or not.

  
  


…Maybe it is true: Dave is starting to look more like you as he gets older.

  
  


“Is it weird to not kiss your girlfriend?” Dave asks out of the blue.

  
  


You have no prerecorded response for him, but feel a need to keep that question out of Hal’s ears because you don’t trust him not to say ‘yes.’ “Not necessarily. What’s wrong?”

  
  


“Well when me n’ Jade were at the airport and she was about to go through security and stuff and I couldn’t go any further, I kinda thought we’d do the whole emotional goodbye kiss but we… didn’t.”

  
  


“Did you tell her that you wanted to kiss?”

  
  


“Nooo…?”

  
  


“Then she didn’t know. Relationships, no matter what kind they are, nobody’s a mind reader.” You place a hand onto Dave’s head and wobble it around a bit, hoping he doesn’t point out how you don’t live by what you preach. “What you’ve been taught as normal may have been taught as weird to somebody else, or maybe they’ve never heard about it in the first place. You said you were expecting an emotional goodbye kiss, but Jade might not have thought of it at all.”

  
  


Dave says, “Ah,” as if he understands, but you can tell that it isn’t truly sinking in.

  
  


Oh well. Not like he’s lacking in years to learn it.

  
  


“It may be a li’l embarrassing, but there’s always a lot to discuss when you really really like somebody.” You dodge the ‘love’ word as expertly as possible, which may be not at all. “Be truthful saying what you want and what you need. How things makes you feel. If they really really like you too, then they won’t make fun of you.”

  
  


Surprisingly, Dave seems comforted by your explanation, which is great because you’re not entirely sure you know what you’re talking about. That or he’s getting depression from his friends leaving.

  
  


You don’t have to figure out a way to cure said friendless depression, however, because Hal greets you with mini-marshmallows in the face as soon as you and Dave step back inside, all sprawled on the couch like a mafioso with the bright red marshmallow launcher John left behind for Dave to play with in hand.

  
  


Hal points the launcher at you. “Run.”

  
  


You don’t run. You pick your little brother up and use him as a screaming shield.

* * *

Dave and Hal are fucking _yelling_ at each other.

  
  


They’re both in the living room. They _were_ playing Final Fantasy XX on the PlayStation Ultra but apparently that devolved when Dave started talking about the value of art compared to the era it was born in and by whom it was created, which apparently meant that they both had to pause, practically talking over top of each other in their desire to be the most correct in their impromptu debate.

  
  


Trust Hal not to realize when it’s time to take a step back and realize it’s a kid he’s talking to.

  
  


You who is innocently washing some dishes in the kitchen (and subtly getting a shoulder massage at the same time) are interrupted by how ridiculous your family is being.

  
  


You shrug Cal’s invisible hands off, the oh-so comforting and hot hands that you can hardly bear to leave, and walk into the living room.

  
  


Dave’s standing up with his arms gesturing wildly, looking all kinds of wound up. Hal is lounging on the couch, looking the exact opposite, but there’s a glint in his eyes and the slightest of quirks to his mouth that shows how much fun he’s having.

  
  


“Are you sure you won’t let me explain the concept of ‘Death of the Author’ to you, Dave? There’s no shame in not knowing pertinent information about the topic you’re debating. In fact, my interpretation may shed some light on what you are currently refusing to accept as reality.”

  
  


“No, you’re biased as fuck! Who knows what bullshit you’ll try to pass off as god-given truth!” You’ve never heard Dave get this loud before. He whips out his phone and starts tapping away, likely to either look it up himself or to contact one of his friends.

  
  


“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten who made that device for you.” Hal stands up quickly and goes for Dave’s phone to do god knows what with it. Childishly hold it over Dave’s head, probably.

  
  


Before this can turn into an honest to shit fight, you reach out and clamp your fingers to Hal’s neck. You think the only reason why he doesn’t flinch and hit you for it is because you used to check his pulse in the middle of the night, like a neonatal kitten on the mend who couldn’t grow up fast enough that went too still for too long.

  
  


All of Hal’s blossoming anger at Dave’s non-compliance is turned towards you. _“What_ are you doing.”

  
  


“I’m takin’ your fuckin’ blood pressure,” you say. “Why are you yellin’?”

  
  


Dave snorts meanly. “Lol, Hal got called out.”

  
  


“Dave, go drink some water and chill for a minute,” you tell him, pointing towards the kitchen.

  
  


He grumbles and stamps his feet a little, but does it. Once you can hear him pour water from the filter into a glass, you focus back on Hal in time for him to slap your hand away from his neck.

  
  


Dave quickly traverses the living room with a glass in his hand and goes outside without glancing in your direction, likely to sit on his bench. Smart kid knows to get out of dodge while he can. Wish you could do the same.

  
  


“What the hell was that all about,” you ask in a low voice, holding onto your hit hand. That really stung. “Fuckin’ yellin’ at a fourteen year old, what the hell did he do to you that was so bad you had to go winding him up like that? Huh?”

  
  


“You’ve babied him for far too long.” Hal curls his lip at you. “He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be told no or to be wrong about something. Not only that, but he takes everything he has for granted. It’s pathetic.”

  
  


You can’t help but roll your eyes at him. “Hal, I swear to god – if you’re gonna be spendin’ your time here blamin’ every personality flaw you perceive within Dave on some nebulous action I may or may not have taken in the past while raising him, you might as well just pack up and get the fuck out, because we won’t be standin’ for that.”

  
  


“It’s not as if you can blame everything on Dad anymore,” Hal bites back. “Somebody has to take responsibility for that _child –“_

  
  


You raise your arm and cross it over your chest, showing him the back of your hand, leaning forward like you’re about to strike, because _god _do you want to, you _want to_ right now.

  
  


He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes widen, pupils contracting as his whole body freezes.

  
  


Sweat pricks at your underarms. Your pulse is beating like a racehorse. Slowly, you lower your hand. It feels like trying to drill a rusty, dull screw into solid metal.

  
  


Neither of you apologize, the heated moment from before acting as if it harmlessly shattered onto the floorboards instead of being resolved in any sort of rational fashion.

  
  


Hal says, “Ten years.”

  
  


_Ten years since what,_ you want to ask, but you don’t. You already know the answer.

  
  


“I’m giving you until the anniversary.” Hal reaches out and touches your cheek with his chilled palm, very unlike how you almost backhanded him. You don’t move away because you don’t deserve to. “I… just try not to…” He pinches his lips together. “Nevermind. It’ll happen how it happens.” He drops his hand. “You brought this upon yourself waiting so long, Dirk.”

  
  


You say nothing in response. There’s something hurt and lost in Hal’s reflective eyes, the way his brow folds and his nose crunches upwards slightly. You wonder if you’ve ever made that expression before.

  
  


Dave comes back inside, creeping towards the kitchen like he’s trying not to draw attention to himself.

  
  


Unfortunately, that doesn’t work on Hal. “Dave.”

  
  


Dave halts. “Yeah?”

  
  


Hal’s expression does something complicated before it settles on an unoffensive smile. “Come here for a moment. I want to apologize for earlier – I should not have baited you like that. Obviously, you’re allowed to have any opinion you desire. It was simply a friendly conversation that got out of hand.”

  
  


Despite looking critical of this announcement, Dave sends you a quick look to which you do nothing at in reply before he abandons his empty cup in the kitchen and maneuvers past the couch to get to Hal, looking up at him with a blank face.

  
  


“I wanted to save this until June, but considering I might be leaving soon, I figured I ought to get you started a little earlier than planned.” Hal pulls out a slim notebook from his deep pants pockets.

  
  


“What is it?” Dave asks, instantly curious.

  
  


Hal flips it open, making sure you can also see the words and symbols written neatly on the page.

  
  


Your heart stops dead.

  
  


“It’s an old code Dirk and I made when we were about your age,” Hal says. White noise like blood rushes in your ears. “We used it to send secret messages back and forth, ones that nobody but us could read. I want to teach it to you in case you ever feel the need to use it.”

  
  


Dave pets his small fingers over the page as if he can feel the years in it, looking up over at where you stand. “Y’all really made this? Bro, you never told me you knew any secret languages, that’s pretty dope.”

  
  


“I don’t.” It takes you a moment to realize that it’s your voice. “I don’t remember.”

  
  


Dave is giving you a look you cannot decipher, his hand skittishly leaving the paper. “Bro.”

  
  


You feel physically ill.

  
  


You don’t know if someone says something to you, or if you say something to them, an excuse or the truth or anything, but you find yourself mechanically walking up the steps with a body that feels so weighed down it’s a wonder you’re still moving at all.

  
  


Your bedroom door opens for you, and you don’t feel yourself walk inside but you must because that’s where you are, the door closing behind you. Something inside of you tells you to worry about that, that there’s some secret you’re keeping from Hal that you’re stalling on telling, but something else, something coaxing and sibilant convinces you not to worry about it. So you don’t.

  
  


It also convinces you that it would be much better if you weren’t so aware right now. So alone. You get messy when you’re alone, prone to slipping up where you don’t want to. You agree. You trustingly fall forward; you beg it to _catch me, catch me,_ and it does like the concrete of a sidewalk catching a suicide attempt.

  
  


If you were alone, you would be frantically ripping apart your desk, hysterical and uncaring of the consequences of being found like that, but because you’re not alone, you do it calmly, so calmly. His very thought guides your hand as you gently lift the false bottom of the leftmost middle drawer, retrieving a somewhat aged letter.

  
  


It’s from Hal. It’s from 2019.

  
  


You let your hands open it.

  
  


Despite your collective attempts to become neutral and lax, you force your eyes to scan the page in a hurry, dissimilar to the way you did ten years ago. This time you decipher it, easier than breathing itself, almost as if you’ve known how to all along, though you cannot prove even to yourself whether or not you read it or if your head-mate does in your stead.

  
  


Caliborn, you can tell, is not surprised.

  
  


You cannot commit to being so yourself.

  
  


Using the fleshy fingers you share with the utterly lambent fire of the deceased soul inside, you burn the failed Macguffin to worthless ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[CLICK HERE for chapter title song]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUtlvO02QiE)   
[[CLICK HERE for the movie clip that inspired this fic]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaIk6I2CM_8)   
[[CLICK HERE for fanart by uncannycory]](https://0dsi.tumblr.com/post/620756548142137346)   
[[CLICK HERE for fanart by chloerinee]](https://0dsi.tumblr.com/post/620106728434008064/chloerinee-what-a-lovely-family-from-0dsi-s)


End file.
